3:00pm to 5:00pm |
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Uranium from Africa and the Power of Nuclear Things. Prof. Gabrielle Hecht, University of Michigan. 23rd Annual Nicholas Mullins Lecture
(Special Event)
Please join us for the 23rd Annual Nicholas Mullins Lecture of the Department of Science and Technology in Society. Our distinguished guest will be Gabrielle Hecht, Professor of History at the University of Michigan. Dr. Hecht's talk, "Uranium from Africa and the Power of Nuclear Things" is drawn from her new book on the global uranium trade, which was just released on March 9: "Being Nuclear: Africans and the Global Uranium Trade" (MIT Press and Wits University Press, 2012).
Abstract: We hear much today about a "second nuclear age" fraught with uncertainty. Like other master categories that claim global purview, the "nuclear" inscribes and enacts politics of inclusion and exclusion. These politics are especially clear from the vantage of African uranium mines during the era of decolonization and Cold War. African ore supplied 20-50% of the West's uranium, shaping global meanings of the "nuclear", with consequences for the circulation of radioactive materials, the institutions and treaties governing atomic energy, and the lives and health of mineworkers. From Niger, to Gabon, and Namibia, this talk explores the manifestations and consequences of nuclearity.
Biosketch: Gabrielle Hecht is Professor of History at the University of Michigan. Her book "The Radiance of France: Nuclear Power and National Identity after World War II" (MIT Press, new edition 2009) received the AHA's Henry Baxter Adams award and the Edelstein prize from the Society for the History of Technology. She recently edited "Entangled Geographies: Empire and Technopolitics in the Global Cold War" (MIT Press, 2011). Her new monograph, "Being Nuclear: Africans and the Global Uranium Trade" (MIT Press and Wits University Press, 2012) examines the colonial, transnational, and postcolonial history of uranium production, focusing especially on matters of trade, labor, and occupational health. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research in Africa, Europe, and North America, the book seeks to remake understandings of the nuclear age by looking at Africa in the nuclear world, and the nuclear world in Africa. More information...
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