April 26, 2006 will mark the twentieth anniversary of the world's worst nuclear accident: the explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station in Ukraine . Although two decades have passed, experts continue to assess the precise environmental, political, social, and health consequences of that catastrophe. This 2005-06 A.W. Mellon Foundation workshop will examine the interactions between technology, culture, and the social world, taking as a case study the 1986 Chernobyl accident. Bringing together scholars from fields such as literature, history, psychology, political science, sociology, social work, development studies, history of science, and genetics, “The Case of Chernobyl” will examine the following questions:

The members of the workshop group will meet monthly throughout the academic year in order to share information and expertise in an informal setting. These monthly meetings may take the form of film screenings, discussions of readings, and also planning sessions for a larger capstone event: a conference on March 23-25, 2006 at the Pyle Center in Madison . The conference, whose title is “Chernobyl Here and Now: Global Engagements, Local Encounters ” will examine the legacy of Chernobyl today, including the ongoing psychological and social effects of the disaster in the affected areas, how the response of governmental and nongovernmental organizations has changed over time to address the evolving nature of the disaster, and the relationship between energy policy and security. The conference will be free and open to the public and should attract students, professors, representatives of NGOs, community members, and the media.