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’. The symposium will be organised in five plenary roundtable discussions focusing on the following themes:
1. History
2. Impacts
3. Memory
4. Resistance
5. Politics and Governance.
Lunch and Refreshments will be provided
This event is funded by the Nagasaki Peace Hall for Atomic Bomb Victims
