Welcome to this spring’s first open seminar in Environmental Humanities. Guest lecturer Paul Josephson will speak on “Atomic Fauna: What Animals Tell Us About the Nuclear Age”.

Animals have their own long, involved stories to tell about the atomic age. They challenge some of the very ways in which civilian and military nuclear systems have been considered relatively safe and ecologically sound. Many analysts, industry spokespeople and environmentalists today advance nuclear technologies as “green” by which they generally mean carbon neutral. But artificial borders, hierarchies and taxonomies concerning the place of animals in the natural world have wrongly separated animals, and by extension humans, from nature. 

These artificial boundaries enable the blurring of arguments about whether nuclear technologies operate safely and cleanly, and prevent a complete evaluation of the environmental (dis)advantages of the nuclear enterprise.

On 27 February, guest lecturer Paul Josephson, an environmental historian at Colby College in Maine, USA, will visit the seminar. He will speak on “Atomic Fauna: What Animals Tell Us About the Nuclear Age”.

Accelerator Café
Thursday 27 February
15:00 – 17:00
Language: English
Free entry, no registration required

About Paul Josephson

Paul Josephson studies the environmental history of the 20th century, particularly in the former Soviet Union. His research focuses on the impact of large-scale technological and industrial projects on local populations and ecosystems.

The event is a collaboration between KTH Environmental Humanities Laboratory, the Stockholm university Environmental Humanities Network and Accelerator.