Iniciativa didáctica interdisciplinar: el pánico nuclear en la literatura del siglo XX

Abstract

Nuclear Panic in 20th Century Literature is a teamwork teaching exercise for Physics and Literature teachers in Spanish secondary education. It proposes eight class sessions with students in the second year of the science Baccalaureate over one week of term-time. The initiative attempts to break the walls that traditionally separate subjects in the Spanish Baccalaureate system, introducing the interdisciplinary analysis and comparison of two extraordinary novels: La bomba increíble (The Incredible Bomb), a novel-fable by Pedro Salinas, and a key work of American science fiction, Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles. Both books, written after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and at the beginning of the Cold War, contain prophetic and apocalyptic visions of the nuclear arms race, and can increase young people’s interest in literature, while also providing an overview of the physics involved in radioactivity and nuclear energy.