Strange Love Is in the Air: CBC-JHI Annual Lecture

Each year, the Jackman Humanities Institute partners with CBC Radio’s Ideas program on a public radio showcase focusing on humanities research at the JHI. This year we're excited to announce that Tong Lam (UTM Historical Studies), one of our 2024-25 Faculty Research Fellows, will give the lecture titled Strange Love Is in the Air. He will be talking about Cold War China’s nuclear weapons development restricted zones, and why they became fertile ground for love stories.

In Cold War China, as in other states with nuclear weapons programs, cities dedicated to nuclear weapons development were restricted zones. Unsurprisingly, much about them remains unknown even long after their decommissioning. Yet, remarkably, these sites also became fertile ground for love stories. As urban legends, love tales associated with these restricted zones emerged through memoirs, official propaganda, and popular culture. Why were love stories so prevalent in places shrouded in nuclear secrecy? And what do they reveal about Cold War mobilization in China and beyond?

Tong Lam’s research utilizes methods of critical infrastructure studies, media studies, and science and technology studies (STS) to examine the politics and poetics of mobilization in China’s special zones in the socialist and postsocialist eras. He also practices research-based visual art to uncover hidden evidence of state- and capital-precipitated violence—both fast and slow—across various contexts. In so doing, he aims to foster a dialogue between his research and creative practices. He is the author of the monograph A Passion for Facts: Social Surveys and the Construction of the Chinese Nation-State, 1900-1949 (Asia-Pacific Modern Series, UC Press, 2011) and Abandoned Futures: A Journey to the Posthuman World (Darlington, UK: Carpet Bombing Culture, 2013), a photo-essay book. His research-based visual projects have been exhibited internationally.