Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the Third Nuclear Age interdisciplinary symposium

This year marks 80 years since the first nuclear age began with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima (6 August) and Nagasaki (9 August). Despite the vast devastation caused by these bombs, nuclear deterrence, the arms race between the USA and Soviet Union, and the proliferation of nuclear weapons to a growing ‘club’ of nuclear-armed States soon dominated international security agendas.

When the Cold War ended, a second nuclear age emerged; ushering in three decades of counterproliferation, arms control and nuclear disarmament efforts.

Yet, fast forward to 2025 and nuclear weapons have once again gained significance in security doctrines. This new, third nuclear age is characterised by rising nuclear threats, loosening nuclear rhetoric, regional and global instability and conflict, the modernisation and expansion of nuclear arsenals, and a renewed arms race amplified by new technologies and new security domains.   

This Autumn, the University of Stirling is hosting the exhibition Remembered: 80 years since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that documents the consequences and lasting impacts of these two atomic bomb explosions in August 1945.

The exhibition will run from 6 October to 14 November 2025. As part of a wider engagement programme of the exhibition, the Division of History, Heritage and Politics is organising a day long symposium Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the Third Nuclear Age.

The aim of this symposium is to bring together experts from a variety of different academic fields and area studies to consider nuclear weapons in the widest sense ranging from memories of the 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings, to the history of nuclear testing and its impacts, to the role of nuclear weapons in the current world order and global governance efforts to reach ‘global zero’.

Agenda and timings

09:00-09:30 Arrival and refreshments

09:30-11:00 Panel 1: Nuclear narratives

11:15-12:45 Panel 2: Nuclear memories and commemoration

12:45-13:30 Lunch

13:30-15:00 Panel 3: Nuclear legacies

15:00-15:30 Refreshment break

15:30-16:30 Roundtable: Nuclear disarmament activism

 

Panel 1: Nuclear narratives (09:30-11:00)

How, and to what extent, do historical and contemporary narratives of nuclear weapons use, possession, testing, and/or renunciation impact national and international outcomes?

Timo Kivimaki, Professor of International Relations, University of Bath

Declan Penrose, PhD Researcher, University of Manchester and Policy Fellow, BASIC

Megan Dee, Senior Lecturer in International Politics, University of Stirling

 

Panel 2: Nuclear memories and commemoration (11:15-12:45)

How do different publics remember the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? What are the practices, ethics or implications of nuclear memory and commemoration?

Sterre van Burren, PhD Researcher, University of Glasgow

Seo Woohyeok, PhD Researcher, London School of Economics

Nicola Leveringhaus, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, King’s College London (online)

 

Panel 3: Nuclear legacies (13:30-15:00)

How, and to what extent, can different legacies of nuclear weapons testing, use, possession and/or renunciation inform our thinking about contemporary nuclear weapons governance and the challenges of a third nuclear age?

Carolina Pantoliano, Research Associate in Nuclear Arms Control and Disarmament, University of Glasgow

Timothy Peacock, Senior Lecturer in History and War Studies, University of Glasgow

Linda Ross, historian and independent scholar

 

Roundtable: Nuclear disarmament activism and resistance (15:30-16:30)

What is the Scottish and international experience of nuclear disarmament activism? What are the main opportunities and challenges facing the campaign for nuclear disarmament today? What must be done to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons?

Samuel Rafanell-Williams, Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

Kenneth Wardrop, Stirling Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

Alicia Anders-Zakre, International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons (online)

Quaker Friend (tbc), Religious Society of Friends

 

Please email book your place via the eventbrite link.