University Showcase 7/21 8a: On this episode we talk with Lucie Genay, author of “Land of Nuclear Enchantment: A New Mexican History of the Nuclear Weapons Industry,” published by University of New Mexico Press. The title is a reference to photographer and artist Patrick Nagatani, whose relatives lived near Hiroshima. His work chronicled the ongoing after-effects of nuclear testing, mining and development in New Mexico.
Genay came to the University of New Mexico as a visiting graduate student and began researching the Manhattan Project. She quickly realized that the bulk of narratives focused on the scientists who came to New Mexico, rather than New Mexicans themselves and their experiences with the creation of the bomb and the ensuing buildup of the nuclear industry here. She also saw the vast income disparities despite the wealth brought to the state through the industry.
Genay is an associate professor of civilization at the Université de Limoges in France. Her most recent book is “Under the Cap of Invisibility: The Pantex Nuclear Weapons Plant and the Texas Panhandle,” also from UNM Press.
This week marks the 78th anniversary of the world's first nuclear explosion with the Trinity Test in Southern New Mexico. A new film focused on the physicist who led the effort to develop the bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer, also opens nationwide this week.
ADDITIONAL READING:
- “Wastelanding: Legacies of Uranium Mining in Navajo Country” by Tracy Boyle
- “Orphaned Land: New Mexico’s Environment Since The Manhattan Project” by V.B. Price
- The Nuclear Borderlands: The Manhattan Project in Post-Cold War New Mexico” by Joseph Masco
- “The First Atomic Bomb: The Trinity Site in New Mexico” by Jennifer Brodie
- “Nuclear Nuevo México: Colonialism and the Effects of the Nuclear Industrial Complex on Nuevomexicanos” by Myrriah Gomez
