Tong Lam
Biography
Tong Lam is an Associate Professor in the Department of Historical Studies and the Graduate Department of History. His research is on the modern and contemporary history of China, with emphases on empire and nation, governmentality, knowledge-production, as well as urban space and ruins. His first book, A Passion for Facts: Social Surveys and the Construction of the Chinese Nation-State, 1900-1949 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), analyzes the profound consequences of the emergence of the technologies of the “social fact” and social survey research in modern China. His new book-length project, The Qing Empire Strikes Back, is a study of late Qing China’s ambitious attempt to transform itself into a modern colonial power in an era of intense imperialist rivalries. Lam’s ongoing research also examines the prevalence of designer architectures, urban ruins, and derelict spaces in post-socialist China’s spectacular and speculative development. As a visual artist, Lam uses photographic techniques to carry out ethnographic studies of contemporary China’s hysterical transformation. At present, he is working on a photo essay book on industrial and post-industrial ruins and abandonment from around the world.
Lam is also involved in a number of collaborative initiates, including a project on the history of science and technology in China and India, as well as a SSHRC funded trans-media study of the changing technologies of film projection in China’s countryside. The products of this latter project include a documentary film, large format photographs, photo essays, and art installations. He also cofounded the Critical China Studies Working Group and organized an international conference on Architectural Spectacle and Urbanism in (Post)socialist China.
Select publications
Articles, Book Chapters & Visual Essays
- “Japan Lost and Found: Modern Ruins as the Debris of the High-Speed Growth,” in Introducing Japanese Popular Culture, 2nd, ed., Alisa Freedman, ed. London: Routledge, 2023, 401-412.
- “Bifurcated and Parallel Histories,” in Cold War Camera, Thy Phu and Erina Duganne Durham, eds. NC: Duke University Press, 2022, 195-201.
- “The Dark Side of the Miracle: Spectacular and Precarious Accumulation in an Urban Village under Siege,” Positions: Asia Critique, 2022, 523-547.
- “As Media Moves People: Notes on the History of (Mis)information,” in (Re)rites of Passage: Asian Canada in Motion, Jasmine Gui, V.T. Nayani, Khanh Tudo, Aaditya Aggarwal, and Philbert Lui, eds. Toronto: Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival, 2021, 88-95.
- “The People’s Algorithms: Social Credits and the Rise of China’s Big (Br)other,” in The New Politics of Numbers: Utopia, Evidence and Democracy, Andrea Mennicken and Robert Salais, eds. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021, 71-95.
- “Where There Is No Room For Fiction: Urban Demolition and the Politics of Looking in Postsocialist China,” in Capitalism and the Camera, Kevin Coleman and Daniel James, eds. New York: Verso books, 2021, 209-225 (with 4 additional color plates).
- “Urbanism of Fear: A Tale of Two Chinese Cold War Cities,” in Cold War Cities: Politics, Culture and Atomic Urbanism, 1945-1965, Richard Brook, Martin Dodge, and Jonathan Hogg, eds. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2021, 115-121.
- “Unreal Estate: Postsocialist China’s Dystopic Dreamscapes,” Postsocialist Landscapes: Real and Imaginary Spaces from Stalinstadt to Pyongyang, Thomas Lahusen and Schamma Schahadat, eds. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2020, 305-320.
- “Ruins for Politics: Selling Industrial Heritage in Postsocialist China’s Rust Belt,” in Constructing Industrial Pasts, Stefan Berger, ed. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2020, 251-269.
- “Sending Films to the Countryside,” in Afterlives of Chinese Communism: Political Concepts from Mao to Xi, Christian Sorace, Ivan Franceschini and Nicholas Loubere, eds. Acton: Australian National University Press, 2019, 243-246.
- “Futures and Ruins: The Politics, Aesthetics, and Temporality of nfrastructure,” China Made, vol. 4, no. 2, (April 2019), 78-83.
- “Portable and Precarious: Life and Spectacle in China’s Construction Camps,” Radical History Review, vol. 128, no. 132, (October 2018), 173-179.
- “Japan Lost and Found: Modern Ruins as the Debris of the High-Speed Growth,” in Introducing Japanese Popular Culture, Alisa Freedman and Toby Sladem, eds. London: Routledge, 2017, 385-398.
- “High-Tech Utopianism: The Politics and Poetics of Science Parks in China and India.” Sciences of Giants: China and India in the Twentieth Century, Special Theme Issues: British Journal of the History of Science (BJHS Themes), June 2016. (Co-authored with Diganta Das)
- “Unreal Estate and China’s Collective Unconscious,” Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review, no. 10, (March 2014).
- “Policing the Imperial Nation: Sovereignty, International Law, and Civilizing Mission in Late Qing China,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol 52, no. 4, (October 2010), 881-908.
- “Herding the Masses: Public Opinion and Democracy in Post-Socialist China,” in China’s Transformations: The Stories behind the Headlines, Lionel M. Jensen and Timothy B. Weston, eds. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007, 197-215.
- “Identity and Diversity: The Complexities and Contradictions of Chinese Nationalism,” in China beyond the Headlines, Timothy B. Weston and Lionel M. Jensen, eds. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000, 147-170.
Books & Edited Volumes
- Sciences of Giants: China and India in the Twentieth Century, Special Theme Issues of the British Journal of the History of Science (Inaugural BJHS Themes), June 2016. (Co-edited with an introduction with Jahnavi Phalkey)
- Abandoned Futures: A Journey to the Posthuman World. Darlington, UK: Carpet Bombing Culture, 2013.
- A Passion for Facts: Social Surveys and the Construction of the Chinese Nation-State, 1900-1949, Asia-Pacific Modern Series, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011.
Courses
News & Media
