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The public debate about the consequences of Chernobyl is of particular political relevance because each interpretation of the event also involves a judgment about the danger of low-level radiation exposure. Thus, statements about Chernobyl and its aftermath are also claims about what it should teach us about the nonmilitary use of nuclear energy. Commemorations of Chernobyl, such as those that occur on its anniversary, are therefore inherently political: the forms of language and the “facts” used to talk about it are an attempt to influence public perceptions about the risks connected with this type of electricity production. Furthermore, the narratives created by various participants in the Chernobyl debate demonstrate how different the perceptions of risk really are. This essay starts with an overview of the accident and its evaluation. It subsequently examines different forms of remembering Chernobyl, from both a national and transnational perspective. It discusses national and transnational carriers of memories such as literature and photography, and elaborates on the implications of the contesting narratives interpreting Chernobyl in “apocalyptic” versus “radiophobic” ways. Furthermore, the essay sheds light on the implications of Chernobyl as a national site of memory in Germany, France, and Belarus. The comparative perspective reveals the importance of underlying structures such as national (nuclear) politics, elite and expert culture, environmentalism, and the role of individual agency. These factors condition the emergence of a specific narrative of the accident within a specific discursive field, and, furthermore, determine the meaning attributed to “Chernobyl” in a given national context setting. The essay concludes with some reflections on the future of Chernobyl as a site of memory and the reshaping of the Chernobyl discourse through Fukushima.

We have grown accustomed to the near-constant invocation of "crisis" as part of our everyday media consumption. During periods of insecurity, historically contingent crisis imaginaries tend to evolve, linking developments in the historical present to cultural memories of a fearful past and visions of an unwanted future. A historical understanding of these imaginaries, along with their societal and material aftermath-including their impact in relation to political choice and decision-making-is imperative for the history of technology. This article aims to problematize the complex relationship between crisis imaginaries and technological futures acknowledging the triple temporality of crises. In order to shed light on the rich potential of historical research into the entanglements of past-and futureoriented crisis narratives, we exemplify this approach in three empirical research themes: security and the experience of past and future; fears as drivers of technological development; political decision-making and the future of space mining.

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Within the ENTRIA project, an interdisciplinary group of scientists developed a research paper 3 aiming at a synthesis of the technical, sociology of knowledge, legal, societal, and political aspects of dose limits within the field of radioactive waste management. In this paper, the ENTRIA project is briefly introduced and the work on dose limits is put into the perspective of this much larger project. Selected aspects of the ENTRIA work on dose limits related to the different roles such limits play for different actors as well as to the specific case of nuclear waste disposal are presented. The work recognizes that such limits are indispensable for technological developments and legal security but, at the same time, depend on country and project specific circumstances. This may result in serious conflicts and concerns in public debates as well as in the political realm. In order to better understand the interaction and interdependencies of these various contexts in which debates about dose limits play out, future interdisciplinary research is needed. This research should contribute to an open discourse on dose limits which reflects underlying values, objectives, actors and procedures that have defined present dose limit regimes. Additionally, this research should indicate paths for potential alternatives and complements to these established regimes.