Reviewed by:

• Infrastructures of Apocalypse: American Literature and the Nuclear Complex by Jessica Hurley
• John Hay

The fact that the world hasn’t witnessed a nuclear attack since the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a modern miracle. Yet recognition of this miracle can make it all too easy to believe that nuclear weapons haven’t killed anyone since 1945. One recent analysis, cited by Jessica Hurley in her impressively [End Page 187] researched Infrastructures of Apocalypse, suggests that as many as 400,000 American deaths between 1952 and 1988 were caused by the carcinogenic effects of atmospheric nuclear testing. This horrifying observation exemplifies Hurley’s argument that an “exclusive attention to the bomb’s detonation often serves to occlude the ongoing violence of the nuclear complex” (184). Whereas most literary critics have theorized the nuclear age in terms of anxieties regarding an imminent apocalyptic war that never actually arrived, Hurley focuses instead on the nuclear complex, the very active sector of the military–industrial complex responsible for producing and disposing of nuclear materials. The development of nuclear technology irreversibly altered the politics, history, economy, and geography of the United States. By attending to these infrastructural changes and to the ways they have been recognized and reflected in popular fiction, Hurley’s book presents “a new literary history of post-1945 America” (4).

Recognizing that her subject matter has often privileged white authorial perspectives, Hurley instead offers “a nuclear criticism from below” (15). By focusing on the reality of the nuclear complex rather than on the imagination of nuclear war, she reveals how the apocalyptic framework of Cold War policies characterized Black, queer, and Native Americans as “futureless”—how, in other words, official narratives of victory in the nuclear arena were often premised upon the apocalyptic annihilation of such communities deemed peripheral to the nation’s central story. US cities, for example, were imagined by state agencies as inevitable targets in a nuclear war; white Americans were accordingly incentivized to move to the suburbs, which were linked together with the new superhighway system (partially funded by the Department of Defense), while Black Americans were left to remain in the defunded cities to serve as the primary casualties of a nuclear attack. Similarly, uranium mining and atomic testing sites were established on or near Native reservation lands, which the US government designated as low-population and low-use, and therefore expendable. Attention to these matters requires a shift away from depictions of future atomic warfare and instead toward what Hurley calls the “nuclear mundane” (9)—a recognition of the evolving material realities of the here and now rather than an anticipatory vision of a catastrophic end.

Over four chapters, Hurley closely examines five novels and one play: Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged (1957); James Baldwin’s Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone (1968); Samuel R. Delany’s Dhalgren (1975); Tony Kushner’s Angels in America (1993); David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest (1996); and Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead (1991). But Infrastructures of Apocalypse is not just an assemblage of close readings; it is also a wondrous work of carefully researched cultural history. Hurley engages with a very broad array of scholarly sources, and the historical context in which she situates her textual analyses will be of interest to anyone working in twentieth-century literary and cultural studies.

By responding to key critical works by scholars such as Paul Boyer, Daniel Grausam, Jacqueline Foertsch, and Alan Nadel, Hurley draws our attention to the central double-bind of the Cold War: the ideological promotion of self-reliant individualism coupled with the insistence that only a secretive, powerful military state can prevent global obliteration. (Only Uncle Sam can protect you from nuclear annihilation—but in all else you must protect yourself!) Ironically, this double-bind often led to a belief that the state would prove ineffective—ultimately unable to prevent nuclear war, which would in turn create a postapocalyptic environment favoring only a handful of prepared survivalists. Democracy...

审核人：

• 启示录的基础设施：美国文学与核综合体杰西卡·赫尔利
• 约翰·海

自从美国在广岛和长崎投下原子弹以来，世界还没有发生过核袭击，这是一个现代奇迹。然而，对这一奇迹的认识可以让人们很容易相信自 1945 年以来核武器没有杀死任何人。 杰西卡·赫尔利 (Jessica Hurley) 在她令人印象深刻的[End Page 187] 中引用的一项最近的分析研究了启示录的基础设施，表明在 1952 年至 1988 年间，多达 40 万美国人的死亡是由大气核试验的致癌作用造成的。这一可怕的观察证明了赫尔利的论点，即“对炸弹爆炸的专一关注往往有助于阻止核综合体的持续暴力”（184）。大多数文学评论家都将核时代的理论化为对即将到来的世界末日战争从未真正到来的焦虑，而赫尔利则专注于核情结，负责生产和处置核材料的军工联合体中非常活跃的部门。核技术的发展不可逆转地改变了美国的政治、历史、经济和地理。通过关注这些基础设施的变化以及它们在流行小说中得到认可和反映的方式，赫尔利的书呈现了“1945 年后美国的新文学史”（4）。

Hurley 认识到她的主题通常优先于白人作者的观点，而是提供了“来自底层的核批评”（15）。通过关注核情结的现实而不是核战争的想象，她揭示了冷战政策的世界末日框架如何将黑人、酷儿和美洲原住民描述为“没有未来”——换句话说，官方叙事如何核领域的胜利往往以这些被认为与国家核心故事无关的社区的世界末日毁灭为前提。例如，美国城市被国家机构想象为核战争中不可避免的目标；美国白人因此被激励搬到郊区，这些郊区与新的高速公路系统（部分由国防部资助）相连，而美国黑人则被留在资金不足的城市，成为核袭击的主要受害者。同样，铀矿开采和原子试验场建在原住民保留地上或附近，美国政府将其指定为低人口和低使用率，因此可以消耗。对这些问题的关注需要从对未来原子战争的描述转向赫尔利所说的“核世俗”（9）——对此时此地不断演变的物质现实的认识，而不是对灾难性结局的预期愿景. 美国政府将其指定为低人口和低使用率，因此可以消耗。对这些问题的关注需要从对未来原子战争的描述转向赫尔利所说的“核世俗”（9）——对此时此地不断演变的物质现实的认识，而不是对灾难性结局的预期愿景. 美国政府将其指定为低人口和低使用率，因此可以消耗。对这些问题的关注需要从对未来原子战争的描述转向赫尔利所说的“核世俗”（9）——对此时此地不断演变的物质现实的认识，而不是对灾难性结局的预期愿景.

在四章中，赫尔利仔细研究了五部小说和一部戏剧：安兰德的《阿特拉斯耸耸肩》（1957 年）；詹姆斯鲍德温的《告诉我火车走了多久》（1968）；Samuel R. Delany 的Dhalgren (1975)；托尼·库什纳( Tony Kushner) 的美国天使(1993)；大卫福斯特华莱士的无限玩笑（1996）；和 Leslie Marmon Silko 的死亡年鉴(1991)。但是启示录的基础设施不仅仅是仔细阅读的集合；这也是一部仔细研究文化历史的奇妙作品。Hurley 接触了非常广泛的学术资源，任何从事 20 世纪文学和文化研究的人都会对她进行文本分析的历史背景感兴趣。

通过回应 Paul Boyer、Daniel Grausam、Jacqueline Foertsch 和 Alan Nadel 等学者的重要批评著作，赫尔利将我们的注意力吸引到冷战的核心双重束缚上：意识形态促进自力更生的个人主义与坚持只有一个秘密的、强大的军事国家才能防止全球毁灭。（只有山姆大叔可以保护你免于核毁灭——但在所有其他方面你都必须保护自己！）具有讽刺意味的是，这种双重束缚常常导致人们相信国家将证明是无效的——最终无法阻止核战争，这反过来又会创造一个只支持少数准备好的生存主义者的后世界末日环境。民主...