This is a Project-Based Class:

This class is transdiscliplinary. Architecture students could design spaces to contain nuclear waste, or bunkers for post-civilization life; fashion students could design environmentally friendly clothing lines, or suits for decontamination/life after a meltdown; public policy students could design policy projects related to Nuclear Power and its use/misuse, or perhaps the urban planning aspects of nuclear power/disasters.

The course is a natural fit for media-studies students studying documentary, animation, film history, science fiction, etc. Your projects are welcome here. Language students, such as Japanese, Russian, or Ukrainian as a foreign language students, could study the original Manga and the film in Japanese, or the original transcripts of Chernobyl survivors. There are history, literature, and art angles that could be played up here as well, given that the media incorporate fiction and ideas of Utopia. All in all, the broad focus of the class lends itself to many transdiscliplinary possibilities.

PBL or Project-Based Learning is a proven way to learn through experience and creativity. Learn more about how we will approach this from the images below.

Please refer to this part of the site when working on your final project websites.

Required Manga

Lepage, Emmanuel. Springtime in Chernobyl. IDW, 2019.

Miyazaki, Hayao. Nausicaä of The Valley of the Wind. Viz media, 2018.

Note

The class requires that you read the first two volumes of Nausicaä, but I recommend buying a full boxed set in English or Japanese (if you can read Japanese). I hear you can read it all online for free...Try The Strand or nearby Forbidden Planet if you are looking for local bookstores that sell the Manga by individual volume.

Also required, selections from these books

Alexievich, Svetlana. Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Disaster. Picador. 2006. 

Napier, Susan. Miyazaki World. Yale University Press. 2018.

Additional suggested reading materials to be explored in discussion sections or to inspire your projects

Aldiss, Brian Wilson. The Long Afternoon of Earth. United States: Nelson Doubleday. 1962.

Bogdanov, Alexander. Red Star: The First Bolshevik Utopia. Indiana University Press, 1984.

Brown, Kate. Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future. W. W. Norton &Co. 2019

Brown, Kate. Plutopia. Oxford. 2013

Callenbach, Ernest. Ecotopia. Bantam New Age. 1975.

Dawney, Leila & Harris, Oliver & Sørensen, Tim. Future World: Anticipatory Archaeology, Materially Affective Capacities and the Late Human Legacy. Journal of Contemporary Archaeology. 4. 107-129. 10.1558/jca.32497. https://leicester.figshare.com/articles/Future_World_Anticipatory_archaeology_materially-affective_capacities_and_the_late_human_legacy/10232417/files/18462962.pdf. 2017.

Fires, Brian. A Fire Story. Abrams ComicArts. 2019.

​​Hersey, John. Hiroshima. 2020.

Higginbotham, Adam, and Jacques Roy. Midnight in Chernobyl: the untold story of the world's 

greatest nuclear disaster. 2019.

Miyazaki, Hayao, Beth Cary, and Frederik L. Schodt. Starting point: 1979-1996. Viz Media. 1996.

Miyazaki, Hayao, Beth Cary, and Frederik L. Schodt. Turning point: 1997-2008. Viz Media. 2014.

Moore, Thomas. Utopia. Translated by Gilbert Burnet.Capstone. 2021.

Petryna, Adriana. Life Exposed: Biological Citizens after Chernobyl. Princeton University Press. 2003.

Shusterman, Neal, Shusterman, Jarrod. Dry. Simon & Schuster BFYR. 2018.

Shusterman, Neal. Scythe. Simon & Schuster BFYR. 2016.

Strugatsky, Arkady and Boris. Roadside Picnic. Translated by Olena Bormashenko. Orion. 2012.

Squarzoni, Philippe. Climate Changed. Abrams ComicArts. 2014.

Film/Television

Chernobyl Miniseries, HBO Video. 2019.

Miyazaki, Hayao. Nausicaä of The Valley of The Wind. Toei Company:1984.

Miyazaki, Hayao. Laputa: Castle in the Sky. Studio Ghibli:1986.