Chernobyl, Three Mile Island und ihre Bedeutung für die globale Erinnerungskultur

In the organizer's words:

The DAI Saxony and Leipzig University Library are cooperating to host a cultural studies symposium that takes the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster as an opportunity to reflect on Chernobyl and Three Mile Island and their significance for the global culture of remembrance, deliberately looking beyond national perspectives four decades after the Chernobyl disaster. The focus will be on Ukrainian, Belarusian and American approaches to the nuclear catastrophe, remembrance, cultural processing and political interpretation. The symposium examines how these events have been inscribed in literature, essay writing, pop culture and public memory and what significance they still have today for the transatlantic debate on risk, responsibility and the future.

The program includes three keynote speeches, followed by a joint discussion round:

Dr. Nina Weller (Leibniz Centre for Literary and Cultural Research Berlin) will speak about Ales Adamowitsch's essays and his commitment to combating radioactive danger and coming to terms with the Chernobyl disaster.

PD Dr. Alexander Kratochvil (LMU Munich) will give an overview of Ukrainian literature on Chernobyl, from texts written immediately after the disaster to later works, for example by Oksana Sabushko, Yuri Andrukhovych and even the computer game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chornobyl as part of the cultural debate.

Annika Schadewaldt (Institute for American Studies at the University of Leipzig) and Dr. Lena Pfeifer (University of Würzburg), editors of an anthology on nuclear energy in US culture, will focus on the HBO series Chernobyl and its place in US pop culture from a comparative perspective with depictions of other nuclear accidents such as Three Mile Island.

The event will be moderated by Dr. Sophia Manns-Süßbrich.