"Our Bruised Arms Hung Up as Monuments": Nuclear Iconography in Post-Cold War Culture

Abstract

Traditionally, communication scholars have examined nuclear discourse at the expense of nuclear images. This essay compensates by developing a nuclear-critical iconology, one sensitive to the role of images in creating and disrupting popular consent to the production of nuclear weapons. As such, this essay contributes to larger critical projects concerned with visual rhetoric and post-Cold War culture. Following a review of Cold War nuclear iconography and the changing post-Cold War nuclear condition, I examine three aesthetics in post-Cold War nuclear iconography for their signi.cance and potential consequences.