Call for Papers: The Atomic Age in 1950s Literature and Culture

International Network of Nineteen-Fifties Culture (INNC) 3rd Annual Symposium

Call for Papers: The Atomic Age in 1950s Literature and Culture

Date: 19 September 2025

Location: Online

Confirmed Keynote Speaker: Dr Gabrielle Decamous, Kyushu University, Japan, author of Invisible Colors: The Arts of the Atomic Age (2019)

The long 1950s (c. 1945-67) was a period defined by the dual forces of scientific progress and existential dread, much like our own. The dawn of the so-called atomic age heralded an era of technological optimism and boundless potential, but also profound anxieties about nuclear destruction, Cold War tensions, and changing global power structures. These paradoxes deeply influenced literature, film, and other cultural expressions, shaping narratives of hope, uncertainty, and paranoia.

For the third annual INNC symposium, we invite scholars, researchers, and enthusiasts to explore the theme of the atomic age in 1950s literature and culture. This online symposium will investigate the cultural responses to the nuclear age, from utopian visions of scientific progress to dystopian fears of total annihilation. We welcome interdisciplinary contributions that engage with literature, culture, and film of the period.

Potential topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Cultural representations of nuclear war, atomic anxiety, and fallout

• Science fiction and speculative narratives of atomic futures

• The aesthetics of atomic culture: visual arts, advertising, and consumerism

• The intersection of nuclear discourse with gender, race, and class

• Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic narratives in the 1950s

• The role of propaganda and ideological messaging in atomic-era literature and media

• The atomic bomb in poetry and protest literature

• Nuclear fear and children’s literature and comics

• The intersection of atomic culture with music, television, and popular culture

• Reactions to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in American and global literature

• The influence of scientific discovery on literary and artistic imagination

Please submit your abstracts by June 30, 2025to: annika.lindskog@englund.lu.se

Conference Organizers:

Annika J. Lindskog, Lund University

Sanna Melin Schyllert, University of York