Dr Mark Pendleton (he/him)
BA, PhD
School of Languages, Arts and Societies
Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies
Full contact details
School of Languages, Arts and Societies
4.04c
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA
- Profile
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I am a historian of modern and contemporary Japan who has worked at Sheffield since 2012. I moved to the UK from my home country of Australia, where I completed a PhD in history at the University of Melbourne. I have also spent several years living, studying and working in Japan, including a year at a Japanese high school, one at a Japanese university as an undergraduate, and 18 months as a doctoral researcher.
Over the course of my career to date, I have researched a range of topics relating to 20th and early 21st century Japan, including doctoral research on victims of political violence/terrorism, modern and contemporary industrial ruins, coal mining history and heritage, queer cultures, the history of HIV and AIDS, and representations of the above topics in various media and literature.
I also have a strong interest in contemporary art practice and have worked with a number of UK institutions and events to showcase artists from Japan (and wider East Asia), particularly those working with feminist and queer approaches.
I have held visiting positions at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Aoyama Gakuin University and the International Research Centre for Japanese Studies in Japan, as well as a number of international institutions including New York University and Sapienza University of Rome.
I am also an active trade unionist and from June 2026 am seconded part-time to the University and College Union (UCU) to take up a national elected role as the Vice President for Higher Education, becoming UCU President in 2029-30.
- Qualifications
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- PhD History, University of Melbourne
- BA (hons) Asian and International Studies, Griffith University
- Research interests
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My core research interest lies in the history of twentieth century Japan, however I also maintain active research interests in studies of gender and sexuality, transnational social movement histories, the politics of violence and the relationship between memory and history. My research is therefore interdisciplinary in nature, drawing from history, cultural studies, memory studies, literature, geography and critical theory.
I also regularly collaborate with others and enjoy co-authorship and co-production of research.
I have supervised a number of PhD projects over the years, focused on different parts of East Asia. These have explored topics including queer literature and media, groups working on HIV and AIDS, domestic architecture, memory and national identity, fashion subcultures and more.
- Publications
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Journal articles
- Mining an Anthropocene in Japan: on the making and work of geological imaginaries. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers.
- Fieldwork from home?: Covid-19 and the patchwork future of Japan-based fieldwork pedagogies. Japanese Studies, 43(3), 251-270. View this article in WRRO
- And I dance with somebody: queer history in a Japanese nightclub. History Workshop Journal, 90, 297-310. View this article in WRRO
- Remembering romit dasgupta. Portal Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, 17(1-2), 155-182.
- Some new directions for the study of coal mining history and heritage. Waseda RILAS Journal, 8, 395-399. View this article in WRRO
- Going Underground with Murakami Haruki: storytelling, oral history and “the japanese psyche” after Tokyo subway sarin attack. Ethnologie française, Vol. 49(1), 141-152.
- Thinking from the Yamanote: space, place and mobility in Tokyo's past and present
. Japan Forum, 30(2), 149-162. View this article in WRRO
- Bringing little things to the surface: intervening into the Japanese post-Bubble impasse on the Yamanote
. Japan Forum: the international journal of Japanese studies, 30(2), 257-276. View this article in WRRO
- Reconfiguring ruins: Beyond Ruinenlust. Geohumanities, 3(2), 531-533. View this article in WRRO
- Engaging Hashima: Memory Work, Site-Based Affects, and the Possibilities of Interruption. Geohumanities, 2(1), 167-187. View this article in WRRO
- Some Gays and the Queers. M/C Journal, 15(6).
- Subway to Street: Spaces of Traumatic Memory, Counter-memory and Recovery in post-Aum Tokyo. Japanese Studies, 31(3), 359-371.
- On the Move: Globalisation and Culture in the Asia-Pacific Region. Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific(23).
- Beyond the Desire for Law: Sex and Crisis in Australian Feminist and Queer Politics. Australian Feminist Law Journal, 31, 77-98.
- Mourning as global politics: Embodied grief and activism in post-Aum Tokyo. Asian Studies Review, 33(3), 333-347.
- THE DISAPPEARANCE OF DESIRE. OVERLAND(193), 48-51.
- Looking Back to Look Forward: The Past in Australian queer anti-capitalism. Melbourne Historical Journal, 35, 51-71.
Book chapters
- A History of Mentalities in Japan in the Early 1970s―Premonitions of anxiety in Economic Prosperity In Hein L (Ed.), The New Cambridge History of Japan (pp. 770-793). Cambridge University Press
- Gender and culture in Japan today INTRODUCTION, ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO GENDER AND JAPANESE CULTURE (pp. 1-7).
- The routledge companion to gender and Japanese culture (pp. 1-424).
- Introduction : Gender and culture in Japan today In Coates J, Fraser L & Pendleton M (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to Gender and Japanese Culture (pp. 1-7). Routledge View this article in WRRO
- On Möbius strips, ruins and memory: The intertwining of places and times in Hino Keizō’s Tokyo In Thornbury B & Schulz E (Ed.), Tokyo: Memory, Imagination, and the City Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. View this article in WRRO
- Return to Battleship Island In Shaw DB & Humm M (Ed.), Radical Space: Exploring Politics and PracticeRe Lanham, MD and London: Rowman & Littlefield.
- Memory, Justice and Post-terror Futures In Neumann K & Thompson J (Ed.), Historical Justice and Memory (pp. 202-220). Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
- Theme Parks and Station Plaques: Memory, Forgetting and Tourism in post-Aum Japan In Sion B (Ed.), Death Tourism: Disaster Sites as Recreational Landscape Seagull Books
- Transnational Sexual Politics in East Asia In Mackie V & McLelland M (Ed.), Routledge Handbook of Sexuality Studies in East Asia London and New York: Routledge.
- The Politics of History, circa 2008 In Wotherspoon K & Ropers E (Ed.), Written Into History: Celebrating Fifty Years of the Melbourne Historical Journal, 1961-2011 (pp. 415-418). Parkville, VIC: The Melbourne Historical Journal.
Book reviews
- Japan Since 1945: From Postwar to Post-Bubble. Edited by Christopher Gerteis and Timothy S. George. (London, United Kingdom: Bloomsbury, 2013. Pp. xv, 318. $39.95.). The Historian, 78(1), 126-127.
- Male sex work and society. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 18(1), 112-114.
- Money, Trains, and Guillotines: Art and Revolution in 1960s Japan. By William Marotti. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2013. xx, 418 pp. $94.95 (cloth); $25.95 (paper).. The Journal of Asian Studies, 74(1), 219-220.
- Ruins of (European) Modernity. Cultural Studies Review, 17(2), 361-366.
Reports
- LGBT+ Histories and Historians: Report
- Mining an Anthropocene in Japan: on the making and work of geological imaginaries. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers.
- Research group
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I enjoy research supervision and welcome enquiries from potential students wishing to work on any topic related to my expertise.
- Teaching interests
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I have taught in all areas of our undergraduate East Asian Studies degree programmes and some of our postgraduate teaching as well.
My teaching tends to be focused on modern and contemporary Japan, and tends to be grounded in history, but I have taught on all areas of East Asia and across a number of disciplinary approaches including sociology, memory studies, literature, media, fieldwork methodologies, gender and sexuality studies and more.
In all of this varied teaching, my focus is on helping students to develop a strong understanding of the historical and contemporary contexts of East Asia, along with the critical skills to analyse original source material from across the region.
I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
- Teaching activities
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I teach on a range of modules across East Asian Studies programmes. These include:
- LAS228 Modern Japanese History
- LAS234 Gender and Identities in East Asia
- LAS601 Doctoral Training in East Asian Studies
- Professional activities and memberships
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I am a longstanding editorial collective member of History Workshop Journal.
I am a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and co-authored the society's landmark report on LGBT+ History and Historians.