Dr Mark Pendleton

Mark Pendleton

BA (Griffith), PhD (Melbourne)

Profile

I joined SEAS in 2012 after submitting a PhD thesis in history at the University of Melbourne. My doctoral thesis explored how the 1995 Tokyo subway gassing is remembered politically and culturally in Japan through various forms of life writing and memorial practices.

During my PhD candidature, I spent eighteen months at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies as a Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) research scholar, and was a visiting fellow at New York University’s ‘Transitions’ Center for International Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences, a project partly funded by the Center National de la Recherché Scientifique (France). I also spent periods living in Japan as a high school exchange student, an undergraduate exchange student, and a mid-twenties furiitâ, for a total of about six years.

Research

My research is interdisciplinary in nature, drawing from history, cultural studies, memory studies, literature and critical theory. While my core interest lies in the history of twentieth century (primarily postwar) Japan, I also maintain active research interests in the histories of gender and sexuality, transnational social movement histories, the politics of violence and the relationship between memory and history.

I am currently developing my doctoral research into a book manuscript and beginning to think about my next research project on modern ruins in Japan.

Teaching

In the spring 2011/12 semester, I teach into the following modules.

EAS210 Japanese Newspapers
EAS250 Modern Japanese History
EAS333 Japanese Newspapers

Teaching Philosophy

Historical enquiry is about developing a respect for both historical truthfulness and critical analysis. As such, I like to use a range of archival materials and primary sources in my teaching, exposing students to the real work of history from early in their academic careers. As a cultural historian, these materials include film, music, literature, art and other media, as well as the traditional textual sources of the discipline. When considered in combination with a wide range of theoretical and methodological approaches, these primary materials become the foundations for developing both historical understanding and the important skills of critical thinking, analytical writing and argumentation that the humanities and social sciences provide.

Articles and Book Chapters

‘Theme Parks and Station Plaques: Memory, Forgetting and Tourism in post-Aum Japan.’ In Staging Violent Death: The Dark Performances of Thanatourism, edited by Brigitte Sion. London: Seagull Books, “Enactments” series, ed. by Richard Schechner / distr. U. Chicago Press, forthcoming (2012).

‘Subway to Street: Spaces of Memory, Counter-memory and Recovery in post-Aum Tokyo.’ Japanese Studies, 31, 3 (2011): 359-371.

‘On the Move: Globalisation and Culture in the Asia-Pacific Region’, with Vera Mackie. Introduction to special issue on Globalisation and Culture in Asia and the Pacific, Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, 23, January (2010). URL: http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue23/mackie_pendleton.htm.

‘Mourning as Global Politics: Embodied Grief and Activism in post-Aum Tokyo.’ Asian Studies Review, 33, 3 (2009): 333-347.

’Beyond the Desire for Law: Sex and Crisis in Australian Feminist and Queer Politics,’ with Tanya Serisier. Australian Feminist Law Journal, 31 (2009): 77-98.

‘Globalising victims of terror: shared memories and memorialising in the Subway Sarin Incident Victims Association and the September 11th Families Association,’ in the Proceedings of the 17th Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia, edited by A. M. Vicziany and Robert Cribb, Monash University (2008), URL: http://arts.monash.edu.au/mai/asaa/index.php

‘Looking back to look forward: The Past in Australian Queer Anti-capitalism, 1999-2002,’ Melbourne Historical Journal, 35 (2007): 51-71.

Book Reviews

‘Ruins of (European) Modernity.’ Cultural Studies Review, 17, 2 (2011). URL: http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/ojs/index.php/csrj/article/view/2301

‘Review of Perversion and Modern Japan and The Politics of Culture.’ Melbourne Historical Journal, 38 (2010), 164-168.