Nuclear Legacies

Communication, Controversy, and the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex

Edited by Bryan C. Taylor, William J. Kinsella, Stephen P. Depoe, Maribeth S. Metzler

Not available to order

Publication date:

13 April 2007

Length of book:

276 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9780739158326

Although the Cold War is commonly considered 'over,' the legacies of that conflict continue to unfold throughout the globe. One site of post-Cold War controversy involves the consequences of U.S. nuclear weapons production for worker safety, public health, and the environment. Over the past two decades, citizens, organizations, and governments have passionately debated the nature of these consequences, and how they should be managed. This volume clarifies the role of communication in creating, maintaining, and transforming the relationships between these parties, and in shaping the outcomes of related organizational and political deliberations. Providing various perspectives on nuclear culture and discourse, this anthology serves as a model of interdisciplinary communication scholarship that cuts across the subfields of political, environmental, and organizational communication studies, and rhetoric.

Chapter 1 Introduction: Linking Nuclear Legacies and Communication Studies
Chapter 2 The Discourse of Officials and Stakeholders of Nuclear Weapons Production
Chapter 3 Convergence and Divergence in the Public Dialogue on Nuclear Weapons Cleanup
Chapter 4 Becoming Hanford Downwinders: Producing Community and Challenging Discursive Containment
Chapter 5 Regional Communication and Sense of Place Surrounding the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
Chapter 6 Organizing the Past, Present, and Future of Nuclear Weapons Production
Chapter 7 Cold War Triumphant: The Rhetorical Uses of History, Memory, and Heritage Preservation within the Department of Energy's Nuclear Weapons Complex
Chapter 8 TRUTH is Generated HERE: Knowledge Loss and the Production of Nuclear Confidence in the Post-Cold War Era
Chapter 9 (Forever) At Work in the Fields of the Bomb: Images of Long Term Stewardship in Post-Cold War Nuclear Discourse
Chapter 10 Critical Response
Chapter 11 Response: Nuclear Legacies and Opportunities for Politically and Ethically Engaged Communication Scholarship

Nuclear Legacies offers a timely and powerful reminder that the ways we talk about—or avoid talking about—nuclear weapons are often as important as the continuing presence of nukes in our world. This book greatly advances our understanding of howrhetoric, myth, and memory operate in one of the most pressing issues facing the planet today....