Wasteland Wrap-up #56

Winter solstice, thoughts on subjectivity in historical writing, some professional news...

Today is the winter solstice, which is an exciting thing to me. When I was growing up, things like solstices and equinoxes were of no account, because I grew up in California and the seasons there were basically of no great account. But since moving to the East Coast in 2004, and now living further north than I have ever lived before, the solstice has taken on greater and greater importance for me, because they signal that the incursion of darkness into lightness is finally about to start retreating.

The sun even occasionally comes out!

Early darkness aside, the winter so far has been very mild: one cold-snap, a little rain here and there, but generally in a range of temperatures that I consider to be acceptable, if one is willing to throw on a sweater now and then.

Last week, on Tuesday, I gave a talk at the Nuclear Knowledges group at Sciences Po about the new book, in which I went over its argument in some detail, and also had some excellent questions from a panel of professors and the audience. It was recorded, and there should eventually be a link to it online, which I will duly circulate on here once it is available. I was happy with how it went.

But mostly it looks kind of gray and overcast. As one would expect.

I also had another podcast come out, on Drafting the Past with Kate Carpenter. I really enjoyed this one, because it was less about the argument of the book and all that, and more about the work of researching and writing the book. It’s about the craft of doing this kind of historical work, and I really love talking about that.

For this book, I think it is especially important, because a number of very conscious decisions went into how I tried to “position” myself as the author (something that came up in my talk/panel last week as well), particularly with regards to invoking the subjective position of the historian. Rather than take up a lot of space here, I have written some thoughts on this below.

Separately, I am excited to announce that I have joined the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists as a Senior Fellow:

What this means in practice is that I am going to be collaborating with the Bulletin on a number of really exciting projects in the next year or so, and writing some pieces for them more regularly. Some of these pieces, like the one I am working on right now, will be cross-posted to Doomsday Machines because of their topical overlap. More will be seen on this as we get into the new year!

Lastly, ICYMI, I wrote a post for Doomsday Machines on Friday about the trope of asserting, or asking, whether “the survivors will envy the dead?” after a nuclear war:

Because next week is a holiday, I am not planning on writing much, but who knows, we will see if the spirit moves me… anyway, I hope you have a good holiday season, whatever you practice or celebrate! Let’s not envy the dead just quite yet…