Daniel Cordle

Research areas

Dr Cordle is an expert in the literature and culture of the nuclear age, on which he has published extensively.

• His most recent book, Late Cold War Literature and Culture: The Nuclear 1980s (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), was described by Science Fiction Studies as 'important and valuable', 'cogent and compelling', and as a 'deeply researched and effectively argued study' that makes 'an important contribution to the study of nuclear war in fiction'. Orbit commented on the book's 'richness of ... discussion of the social/political/historical context of the 1980s', noting the 'innovative correlations [it] makes between texts'. A review for the British Society for Literature and Science (BSLS) commented on its analysis of the 'complex anxieties [that] pervade different aspects of life in the late Cold War' and how it 'successfully captures the intriguing nuances of the nuclear age'.
• His previous book, States of Suspense: The Nuclear Age, Postmodernism and United States Fiction and Prose (Manchester UP, 2008), was described as 'insightful and compelling' (Technology and Culture), a 'brilliant analysis of North American literature during the Cold War' (BSLS) and as opening up 'rich, important pathways for future nuclear criticism' (Modern Fiction Studies).
• He is currently writing a book on the literature of Los Alamos and the Manhattan Project, analysing the ongoing cultural and psychological impact of the dawn of the nuclear age.
• His articles on nuclear literature address topics including the politics of vulnerability in nuclear texts, the impact of civil defence discourse, the history of nuclear criticism and the Anthropocene.
• His Instagram microblog on nuclear culture can be followed @nuclearculture.

Dr Cordle also has interests in the broader relations between literature and the sciences (on which he has published a monograph, Postmodern Postures: Literature, Science and the Two Cultures Debate, Ashgate, 1999), postmodernism, and British and North American literature of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Opportunities to carry out postgraduate research towards an MPhil/PhD in the School of Arts and Humanities exist and further information may be obtained from the The NTU Graduate School. Dr Cordle welcomes applications to research nuclear culture and the other areas on which he works.

Press expertise

Dr Cordle can offer comment on 20th and 21st-century nuclear literature and culture; Cold War literature and film; nuclear protest; postmodern American literature; twentieth-century American literature (post-1950); literature and science; the Anthropocene; and the 'two cultures' debate (the relationship between the Arts and the Sciences).