Please join us for another lecture in the Ukrainian Energy Studies series! The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has confirmed not only the centrality of energy to the war, but also the importance of Ukraine to global energy policy, with its far-reaching economic, environmental, and cultural consequences. This interdisciplinary series, co-organized by the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia at NYU and the East European, Russian, Caucasian, and Central Asian Faculty Network at the University of Colorado Boulder, will explore the concept of energy as a shaping force in Ukrainian cultural and political history; the aesthetics of particular energy sources (fossil fuels, nuclear energy, renewables) in Ukrainian literature, film, and other media; the Russia-Ukraine energy nexus; Ukrainian energy markets; and environmental effects of energy production, consumption, and catastrophe.
Profiling energy literacy (‘the domain of basic energy-related knowledge, coupled with an understanding of the impacts of energy production and consumption on the environment, energy usage and the adoption of energy-saving behaviors, DeWaters, Powers, 2011) within ‘world energy literature’ studies (Szeman, 2017; Goodbody, 2018) by narrating the Chornobyl disaster and its aftermath in fictional writing helps distinguish the emotional and non-emotional tools of fictionalizing a nuclear disaster from the perspective of framing critical thinking and understanding of nuclear technologies, nuclear energy industry, and nuclear infrastructure – with their benefits, risks and challenges. This helps define the critical perception of nuclear energy related issues from the aspect of transmitting scientific knowledge through fiction.
This study helps distinguish the societal and cultural parameters of energy literacy in fictionalizing the Chornobyl-related issues in the focus of intermedial ecocriticism’s perspective (Bruhn, 2020), with its emphasis on translating scientific knowledge into other media. ‘Nuclear fiction’ is regarded, within the contemporary energy humanities’ agenda, as a societal response to current debates on energy-related challenges of energy-driven society from the perspective of critical thinking on nuclear history.
Professor Sukhenko focuses on studying the literary dimensions of profiling nuclear literacy in nuclear fiction within contemporary Ukrainian Choprnobyl-related fiction– in particular: Pavlo Arie’s At the beginning and at the end of times (Павло Ар'є «На початку і наприкінці часів», 2015), Tatiana Tykhovska’s Anthill (Татьянa Тиховсka «Антхил», 2018), Markiya Kamysh’s Oformlandia or Walking to the Zone (Маркіян Камиш «Оформляндія або Прогулянка в Зону», 2015). Sukhenko analyses the transformations in narration of nuclear literacy in the social and cultural context of communities that have experienced ‘nuclear trauma’. Understanding the cultural and literary parameters of narration of the Chornobyl disaster and its aftermath from the perspective of nuclear knowledge management is a key step towards shaping nuclear literacy/nuclear awareness. Using fictional storytelling as a tool to translate scientific knowledge on nuclear events for the public can help develop critical societal assessment skills on nuclear energy-related issues in Ukraine and beyond.
This event will be held virtually on Zoom.
Inna Sukhenko is a research fellow of Helsinki Environmental Humanities Hub, the Department of Cultures, the University of Helsinki. Her current project is focused on researching the literary dimensions of nuclear energy within energy literary narrative studies. She coordinates the (co-)teaching international team of ‘Chernobyl Studies’ course at the University of Helsinki (Aleksanteri Institute). After defending her PhD in Literary Studies (Dnipro, Ukraine), she has been a research fellow of Erasmus Mundus mobility programmes (Bologna, 2008; Turku, 2011-2012), Cambridge Colleges Hospitality Scheme (2013), SUSI (Ohio, 2016), Open Society Foundation/Artes Liberales Foundation (Warsaw, 2016-2017), JYU Visiting Fellowship Programme (Jyväskylä, 2021), PIASt Fellowship Programme (Warsaw, 2021). She is among the contributors of The Routledge Handbook of Ecocriticism and Environmental Communication (2019). Her general research interests lie within environmental humanities, energy humanities, petrocultures, ecocriticism, nuclear criticism, literary energy narrative studies, world energy literature, nuclear fiction, Chernobyl fiction, energy ethics. She is a member of the Association for Literary Urban Studies (Finland), HELSUS (Finland), the Finnish Society for Development Research (Finland), and Nordic Association for American Studies (NAAS).
