This edited collection considers the myriad representations of the potential dangers caused by nuclear power within the arts. While the fear of nuclear disaster has been addressed in some scholarly works on the Cold War, apocalyptic and ecocritical fictions, the specific threat of nuclear power within the Gothic and horror deserves further consideration. Indeed, as a concept highly concerned with cultural anxieties, the Gothic has proved fertile ground to express fears of nuclear power. Chapters in this collection engage with the full spectrum of terror and horror, investigating humanity and morality as well as bodily mutation and breakdown, using case studies drawn from literature, film, television, video games, and audio media. Taking a global approach, these studies demonstrate that atomic horror texts emerge from a number of national and historical contexts, tracing specific nuclear fears from the 20th century (such as the Second World War, Cold War and Chornobyl disaster) and connecting the lasting impact of such conflicts and disasters to the threat of nuclear war in the present day, making this collection a timely exploration of a still-pressing anxiety.

Abigail Whittall is Research Degrees Leader at the University for the Creative Arts. She has taught Film and English Literature at the University of Winchester where she completed her funded PhD studentship on the representation of Nazism in 21st century horror films. She has published on this topic in the edited collection New Blood: Critical Approaches to Contemporary Horror (2021), in addition to an article on the depiction of Nazis in superhero media in the Australasian Journal of Popular Culture. Her recent research focuses on the perception of acting in the horror genre and the specific role of the practical effects makeup performer.

Laura Hubner is Professor Emeritus at the University of Winchester. Author of Fairytale and Gothic Horror: Uncanny Transformations in Film and The Films of Ingmar Bergman, she has published widely on cinema, literature, culture and the arts, including Valuing Films: Shifting Perceptions of Worth, The Zombie Renaissance in Popular Culture and Framing Film: Cinema and the Visual Arts. She was Guest Speaker on the 1000th Episode of BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time on The Seventh Seal and is currently working on a new monograph on Bergman.