Projects

NUCLEARWATERS: Putting Water at the Centre of Nuclear Energy History, funded by the European Research Council (ERC). This project aims to develop a new narrative of nuclear energy in historical perspective. Placing water flows (necessary for the cooling of nuclear reactors) at the centre of the analysis allows us to integrate the seemingly ultra-modern history of nuclear energy into a longer and deeper history of human civilization. The project unveils how nuclear engineers are plagued by the same nightmares as ancient Mesopotamia’s water wizards, lying sleepless at night for fear of floods and droughts. The project, which involves four senior scholars and three PhD students, was started up in May 2018 and will be completed by the end of October 2023.

Cold War Coasts: The Transnational Co-Production of Militarized Landscapes, funded by the Formas Research Council. The project was granted in 2017 and will continue until December 2022. It explores the fear among coastal populations around the Baltic Sea in the context of the Cold War, when the threat of military attacks from the opposite shore was an integral part of the popular imagination. The project takes us from Stockholm’s sprawling archipelago and northern Gotland’s desolate beaches to the militarized islands of Estonia and Curonia’s seashores in western Latvia (where Soviet military bases are now giving way to an artist’s mecca).