IDENTITY FORMATION DURING TIMES OF NUCLEAR VIOLENCE AND GLOBE-WIDE FEAR

       I want to explore the ways in which Gertrude Stein's positionality as identifying as an artist, expat, queer woman, Jewish person, acted on the way she interacted with nuclear violence.  Stein's sardonic bravado in “Reflection on the Atom Bomb" cajoles the reader into thinking that she is bored by and disinterested in atomic bombs.  While I question the reality of her statements, I would also like to look at the privilege imbued in rejecting something as pervasive and threatening as fear of nuclear violence.  She states that "(...) [I]f you are not scared, the atomic bomb is not interesting," asserting her position outside of hegemonic American society by comparing her complete lack of fear with the general public's small amount of fear.  This detachment might have to do with her geographical distance from the countries involved in the nuclear conflicts or with her marginalized identity within American society based on her gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation. 

      My imagination of Stein as of Jewish heritage and experiencing cultural memory of mass extermination caused me to wince at the insensitivity of her claims that “(…) it’s the living that are interesting, not the way of killing them”.    Statements such as these ignore the legacies of nuclear violence (and other extermination projects) as well as the ways that such conflicts work on individual identities and national ideologies.  Alan Nadel is concerned with this in his work on containment culture.  He sheds light on how national policies and other state-disseminated ideologies are linked with the way people construct their identities.  The privilege displayed in the casualness with which Stein trivializes imperialism and violence speak directly to her cultural capital as a white woman.  I was happy to engage with this piece because it brought up questions at the intersections of sexual and political identity, and national narratives on war and mass human extermination.