Nuclear scholar and social thinker Professor Elaine Scarry shares her views on today’s growing nuclear threats –the underlying problems with the nuclear architecture and governance, based on her groundbreaking book Thermonuclear Monarchy, and discusses key ideas in her book Thinking in an Emergency, on how citizens and communities can prepare for emergency situations in order to preserve themselves and their autonomy.

Elaine Scarry is the Walter M. CaboT Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University.  She is the author of numerous seminal books including Thermonuclear Monarchy, where ‘explores the political consequences of limiting the control of nuclear weapons to a select few, and the authority to launch them to even fewer. Her book Thinking in An Emergency  Explores how in the face of governments that augment their authority in emergencies at the expense of democracy, citizens and communities, can prepare for emergency situations in order to preserve themselves and their autonomy.