- Peter C. van Wyck
Professor of Communication Studies
Department of Communication Studies
7141 Sherbrooke Street, West, CJ 4.327
Concordia University
Montréal, Québec H4B 1R6
Office: (514) 848-2424 x2561
Fax: (514) 848-4257
Peter C. van Wyck
Concordia University (Canada), Communication Studies, Department Member
- I am a Montréal writer, researcher and professor of communication studies at Concordia University, where I am also t... moreI am a Montréal writer, researcher and professor of communication studies at Concordia University, where I am also the director of the MA in Media Studies graduate program. My scholarly work is widely interdisciplinary, but has abiding interests in the theoretical and practical relations between culture, nature, environment, landscape and memory, with particular emphasis on nuclear issues. My new book project is called The Angel Turns: Atomic Memos for the End of the Holocene.
My most recent book, The Highway of the Atom (McGill-Queens University Press) – winner of the 2011 Gertrude J. Robinson book award from the Canadian Communication Association – is a theoretical and archival investigation concerning the material and cultural history of uranium production in the North of Canada.
I also wrote Signs of Danger: Waste, Trauma, and Nuclear Threat (University of Minnesota Press, 2005), and Primitives in the Wilderness: Deep Ecology and the Missing Human Subject (State University of New York Press, 1997). I've just started work on a new project that has something to do with nuclear media, apology, nuclear imprescriptibility, justice and the future. See my faculty webpage at Concordia for more writings and projects.edit
A subarctic mine on the far eastern shores of Great Bear Lake provided Canadian uranium for the bombs detonated over Japan in August 1945. However, a complete history of Canada's involvement in the Manhattan Project and the development of... more
A subarctic mine on the far eastern shores of Great Bear Lake provided Canadian uranium for the bombs detonated over Japan in August 1945. However, a complete history of Canada's involvement in the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb has been thwarted by restrictions on classified documents.
The Highway of the Atom overcomes these restrictions in an innovative and unconventional history that assembles a narrative from fragments - interviews, indigenous stories, archives, and physical remains - while questioning whether it is possible to grasp the past by sifting through what remains. Uncovering the story of the radioactive ore's route from mine to weapon of mass destruction, Peter van Wyck considers the legacy of this history for the Dene community and inquires into trauma, landscape, disaster, and memory.
From the fur trade routes of the far North, to the deserts of New Mexico and wartime Japan, The Highway of the Atom weaves together crucial missing pieces about the beginning of the Atomic Age in startling and unexpected ways.
The Highway of the Atom overcomes these restrictions in an innovative and unconventional history that assembles a narrative from fragments - interviews, indigenous stories, archives, and physical remains - while questioning whether it is possible to grasp the past by sifting through what remains. Uncovering the story of the radioactive ore's route from mine to weapon of mass destruction, Peter van Wyck considers the legacy of this history for the Dene community and inquires into trauma, landscape, disaster, and memory.
From the fur trade routes of the far North, to the deserts of New Mexico and wartime Japan, The Highway of the Atom weaves together crucial missing pieces about the beginning of the Atomic Age in startling and unexpected ways.
Bookwork from: Moore, Jake and Moore, Christopher. *Contested Site : Archives and the City (les cahiers)*. Montréal, Qc: FOFA Gallery Concordia University, 2012. A photographic exercise in urban semiotics.