Rens van Munster

Primary research areas

Rens van Munster’s research is animated by a deep fascination with the global politics of risk and catastrophe, with a special focus on nuclear issues. He is interested in how nuclear weapons shape our ideas about war, politics and technology, as well as in the historical and contemporary links between nuclear weapons and climate change. dd

Current research

Rens van Munster study how the development of nuclear weapons during the Cold War has informed new ideas about modern warfare, the nature and character of the international system, as well as novel conceptions of extinction and planetary survival. Rens van Munster also studies the relation between the nuclear weapons technology, the national security state and democracy. Finally, he explores the nuclear origins of the Anthropocene and ask what we can learn if we view the Anthropocene as the radioactive afterlife of the Cold War. For example, he asks to what extent nuclear testing can be viewed as the ground zero of the Anthropocene?

Projects

Rens van Munster is the PI for the project ’Radioactive Ruins: Security in the Age of the Anthropocene’ (RADIANT), which is funded by the Danish Council for Independent Research. Together with two colleagues, he explores the oft-overlooked nuclear origins of the Anthropocene age through three in-depth empirical studies of central Cold War nuclear test sites: the Marshall Islands, Kazakhstan and French Polynesia. By examining the everyday experiences of security at these forgotten ground zeros of the Anthropocene, this project contributes new empirical knowledge to answer a central theoretical question: What does it mean to speak of security in an age of global ruination?