TY - JOUR
T1 - At the Interface
T2 - The Loaded Rhetorical Gestures of Nuclear Legitimacy and Illegitimacy
AU - O'Gorman, Ned
AU - Hamilton, Kevin
PY - 2011/3
Y1 - 2011/3
N2 - This essay examines an important icon of American nuclear modernity, the operator at the interface control panel, to show how the logic of nuclear legitimation in the Cold War has perdured into the contemporary world, and that nuclear terrorists and bombwielding "rogue states" can function as inventions that rationalize America's claim to nuclear hegemony. Through a critical account of the "competent" gestures of the statesanctioned nuclear operator at the interface, and the "incompetent" gestures of the staterepudiated nuclear terrorist, we argue that that the rationalization of nuclear weapons, in a psychoanalytic sense, has depended on rationalization in the Weberian sense.
AB - This essay examines an important icon of American nuclear modernity, the operator at the interface control panel, to show how the logic of nuclear legitimation in the Cold War has perdured into the contemporary world, and that nuclear terrorists and bombwielding "rogue states" can function as inventions that rationalize America's claim to nuclear hegemony. Through a critical account of the "competent" gestures of the statesanctioned nuclear operator at the interface, and the "incompetent" gestures of the staterepudiated nuclear terrorist, we argue that that the rationalization of nuclear weapons, in a psychoanalytic sense, has depended on rationalization in the Weberian sense.
KW - Interface
KW - Nuclear legitimacy
KW - Rationalization: terrorism
KW - Rogue states
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=79952023006&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=79952023006&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/14791420.2010.543986
DO - 10.1080/14791420.2010.543986
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:79952023006
SN - 1479-1420
VL - 8
SP - 41
EP - 66
JO - Communication and Critical/ Cultural Studies
JF - Communication and Critical/ Cultural Studies
IS - 1
ER -