Name: Atomic Bombshells. How Plastics Shaped Postwar Bodies
SKU: 65747551
Price: 28.18 EUR
Availability: InStock
Author: Isabelle Held

portada Atomic Bombshells. How Plastics Shaped Postwar Bodies

Atomic Bombshells. How Plastics Shaped Postwar Bodies

Type

Physical Book

Publisher

Duke University Press

Author

Isabelle Held

Year

2026

Pages

376

Format

Paperback

Dimensions

22.9x15.2 cm

ISBN13

9781478033103

Atomic Bombshells. How Plastics Shaped Postwar Bodies

Isabelle Held (Author) · Duke University Press · Paperback

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Synopsis "Atomic Bombshells. How Plastics Shaped Postwar Bodies"

Bullet bras, bazookas, bombshells, bikinis. In Atomic Bombshells, Isabelle Held challenges the usual narratives of how war technologies enter domestic use by following plastics on their journey into women’s bodies. Held explores the effects of military-industrial science and the emergence of nylon, silicone, and plastic foams on embodied and expressive configurations of gender, sexuality, and race. She focuses on the United States between the late 1930s with the launch of nylon—whose potential was widely celebrated as the world’s first fully synthetic fiber and the ideal replacement for silk stockings—and the late 1970s, when policies began addressing the dangerous health consequences of implantable plastics. Held untangles the complex relationships between chemical companies, the US military, the Federal Drug Administration, plastic surgeons, advertising agencies, the Hollywood star system, go-go dancers, drag queens, and fashion and industrial designers. Using feminist, queer, and trans lenses, she shows that there was never just one bombshell identity. In so doing, Held complicates typical understandings of the shaping and reshaping of gender.