The Intercultural Representation of Nuclear Disaster between Appropriation and Distance: Two Examples from Luxembourg

Abstract

In Luxembourg, nuclear power stations have been part of literary imaginary since the end of the 1970s. This imaginary is fueled by the opposition against two nuclear projects on the Moselle River, and by the major nuclear accidents which have marked recent human history over the last decades. From this context, this contribution seeks to bring to light the multiple links between ecology and nuclear power, and as a corollary between the two research fields, within the framework of literary and cultural studies, of ecocriticism and nuclear criticism. Based on the shared key problematics of the latter (temporality, geography, and subjectivity), the analysis of two francophone literary works published in Luxembourg then explores two seemingly diametrically opposed ways of describing the intercultural dimension of the nuclear disaster: one imagining cultural appropriation based on geographical relocalisation, the other highlighting the gap between the event and its perception.