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Masculinity in the Personal Narratives of Soviet Nuclear Physicists

Masculinity in the Personal Narratives of Soviet Nuclear Physicists Masculinity in the Personal Narratives of Soviet Nuclear Physicists Erica L. Fraser ABSTRACT With the onset of the Cold War and a new nuclear world order, Soviet physicists found themselves at the nexus of scientifi c research and weapons development. This article investigates the subjectivity of these physicists as an issue of masculinity. Infl uenced by Connell’s models of subordinated, complicit, and hegemonic masculinity, the article fi nds that the stories nuclear physicists tell about their research in the 1950s are incon- sistent and shi ing, with the narrators simultaneously remembering unfreedom and privilege. They tell of being conscripted to military work against their will but then enjoying (and deserving) the resulting power, all while maintaining strong homosocial networks in the laboratory predicated on excluding women. Evidence from personal narratives provides unique insight into these multiple masculinities and the way the authors position themselves as (masculinized) Cold War subjects. KEYWORDS: autobiography, cold war, masculinity, memoirs, physics, Soviet Union, subjectivity In his memoirs, wri en between 1978 and 1982, acclaimed physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov recalls an exchange with Marshal Mitrofan Nedelin at a banquet the two a ended following the Soviet Union’s successful hydrogen bomb test in 1955: Glass http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Aspasia Berghahn Books

Masculinity in the Personal Narratives of Soviet Nuclear Physicists

Fraser, Erica L.
Aspasia , Volume 8 (1): 19 – Mar 1, 2014
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Publisher
Berghahn Books
Copyright
© 2022 Berghahn Books
ISSN
1933-2882
eISSN
1933-2890
DOI
10.3167/asp.2014.080104
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Masculinity in the Personal Narratives of Soviet Nuclear Physicists Erica L. Fraser ABSTRACT With the onset of the Cold War and a new nuclear world order, Soviet physicists found themselves at the nexus of scientifi c research and weapons development. This article investigates the subjectivity of these physicists as an issue of masculinity. Infl uenced by Connell’s models of subordinated, complicit, and hegemonic masculinity, the article fi nds that the stories nuclear physicists tell about their research in the 1950s are incon- sistent and shi ing, with the narrators simultaneously remembering unfreedom and privilege. They tell of being conscripted to military work against their will but then enjoying (and deserving) the resulting power, all while maintaining strong homosocial networks in the laboratory predicated on excluding women. Evidence from personal narratives provides unique insight into these multiple masculinities and the way the authors position themselves as (masculinized) Cold War subjects. KEYWORDS: autobiography, cold war, masculinity, memoirs, physics, Soviet Union, subjectivity In his memoirs, wri en between 1978 and 1982, acclaimed physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov recalls an exchange with Marshal Mitrofan Nedelin at a banquet the two a ended following the Soviet Union’s successful hydrogen bomb test in 1955: Glass

Journal

Aspasia – Berghahn Books

Published: Mar 1, 2014

Keywords: autobiography; Cold War; masculinity; memoirs; physics; Soviet Union; subjectivity

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