Dr Gwyn McClelland
Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies , Japanese Discipline - School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
Biography
Dr Gwyn McClelland is Japanese Studies Senior Lecturer in the Department of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics within the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. Additionally, from 2024 he is HASS School Honours Coordinator. From 2024, Gwyn will teach in History as well as the Japanese discipline, via the new unit, HIST547, Asia Decolonised?
As an oral historian, Gwyn conducts research engaging with religious discourses in memory, history, theology, and sensory studies. His first monograph was published in 2019 by Routledge, Dangerous Memory in Nagasaki: Prayers, Protests and Catholic Survivor Narratives. He is co-editor with Dr Hannah Gould (University of Melbourne) of the 2023 edited collection, Aromas of Asia: Exchanges, Histories, Threats (Penn State University Press) in the Perspectives on Sensory History Series edited by Mark M. Smith.
Gwyn was awarded the 2022 Japan Foundation Long-term Fellowship to examine UNESCO World Heritage Hidden Christian sites within the Gotō Archipelago (awarded in 2020 but not taken due to COVID). He is currently working on his associated book project: tentatively Pure Land to Hell: Hidden Kirishitan, the Goto Islands, and World Heritage.
Qualifications
PhD, Historical Studies (Japanese Studies): Monash (2018); MDiv, Theology: Melbourne College of Divinity (now University of Divinity) (2008); Grad Dip Ed: Monash (1994); BA (Hons), Geography and Japanese: Monash (1993).
Awards
National Library of Australia Fellowship, 12 weeks, 2022-2023.
Japan Foundation long-term research fellowship four, and two months. (2020 and 2022)
JSAA (Japanese Studies Association of Australia) Grant, (2019)
John Legge Prize for Best Thesis in Asian Studies, Australian Association of Asian Studies (2019)
Jill Roe AHA Conference ECR scholarship, Australian Historical Association (2019)
Japan Study Grant at the National Library of Australia, Canberra (2015)
CLIL Project Grant: Victorian Department of Education, $30,000; (2012)
Becoming Asia Literate Grants Scheme: Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations: Project Leader, “CLIL: Content Linked Integrated Learning – Asian Studies through Japanese” ($30,000), 2011.
Research activities
Book Review Editor, Studies in Oral History, Journal of the Oral History Association of Australia.
SSP fieldwork, supported, Fukuoka and Goto Islands, 2023.
Japan Foundation Fellowship research in Japan, two months in 2022;
Teaching Areas
Gwyn teaches into Japanese language (JAPN101, 102, 201, 215, 345, 412, 400H, 421, 521) and History at the University of New England (HASS301, and new unit HIST547 – Asia Decolonised?). He supervises projects at the undergraduate, Master and PhD levels.
Primary Research Area/s
Oral history; History; Japanese history; East Asian history; Theology; Religious studies ; Peace studies ; Material religion; Trauma studies ; Sensory studies ; Cultural history; Translation studies ; ReconciliationResearch Supervision Experience
PhD students, Meg Adam, Alvine Mulligan
Current Project Main Supervisor: “The Enlightened Female – Buddhism, women and being a mother”
Successful completions:
Master level projects
Adam Young: “Gongche Xiaolian Lianshu Shangshu: Kang Youwei’s vision of a reformed, yet still Confucian China” 2022
Callum Gallagher: “Memory of the ronin of the chushingura in the Meiji period”
Kate Minkoff: “Examining what is uniform about the Mao suit”
Multiple undergraduate research projects in HASS301 units
I am available for Honours, Master, and PhD supervision in areas relating to Japanese or Asian History (East Asian specialty), Religious Studies, Peace studies or Cultural History. Please contact me via email to discuss potential projects.
Publications
Books
Hannah Gould and Gwyn McClelland (Eds), Aromas of Asia: Exchanges, Histories, Threats (Penn State University Press) in the Perspectives on Sensory History Series edited by Mark M. Smith.
Dangerous Memory in Nagasaki: Prayers, Protests and Catholic Survivor Narratives, Series: Asia’s Transformations, Series Editor: Mark Selden, London, New York: Routledge, 2020.
Research Articles
‘Valuing the Urakami Cathedral after the atomic bombing: fundraising and social rupture in Nagasaki’, Special Issue, Journal of Cultural Economy, 1-17, 2022.
Levi Durbidge and Gwyn McClelland, ‘Japanese Language Learning and Teaching During COVID-19: Challenges and Opportunities’, Japanese Studies, 42 (3), 2022.
‘An online exchange between university-level language learners in Japan and Australia’, Shannon Mason and Gwyn McClelland, Bulletin of Faculty of Education, Nagasaki University, 2022.
'From Pure Land to Hell: Introducing four culturally hybrid UNESCO World Heritage sites in the Goto Archipelago, Shima 16 (1), 1-20, 2021. (Open Access)
‘Urakami Memory and the Two Popes: The Disrupting of an Abstracted Nuclear Discourse’, Religions 12 (11), 950, 2021. Open Access.
Remaining articles listed on Google Scholar
Book Chapters in Edited Volumes
Gwyn McClelland and Hannah Gould ‘Scents, Sensory Colonialism, and Social Worlds in Asia’ in Hannah Gould and Gwyn McClelland (Eds) Aromas of Asia: Exchanges, Histories, Threats, Penn State University Press, 2023.
‘The Aroma of a Place in the Sunshine: Breathing in Japanese History through the Fiction of Endo Shusaku’ in Hannah Gould and Gwyn McClelland (Eds) Aromas of Asia: Exchanges, Histories, Threats, Penn State University Press, 2023.
‘“Love Saves from Isolation”: Ozaki Tōmei and His Journey from Nagasaki to Auschwitz and back’ in Chad Diehl (Ed) Shadows of Nagasaki: Trauma, Religion, and Memory after the Atomic Bombing, Fordham University Press, 2023.
Gwyn McClelland and Yuki Miyamoto ‘Commemorating Nagasaki Alongside the “Extraordinary Noise” of the Olympics and Under the Covid-19 “Mushroom Cloud”’ in Roman Rosenbaum and Yasuko Claremont (Eds) Art and Activism in the Nuclear Age, Routledge 2023.
'Digitalising Trauma’s Fractures: Nagasaki Museums, Objects, Witnesses, and Virtuality’ in Victoria Grace Walden (Ed) The Memorial Museum in the Digital Age, Reframe Books, 2022, Open Access.
'Foreign Missionaries and Indigenous Communities in Nineteenth Century: Japan’ in Cindy Yik-yi Chu and Beatrice Leung (Eds) The Palgrave Handbook of the Catholic Church in East Asia, 2021.
Remaining Book Chapters listed on Google Scholar
Other Publications/Media
Forthcoming, Hidden Christian World Heritage on the Goto Islands Project, to be published on Digital Humanities Japan Past and Present, UCLA and Waseda Universities joint project.
Book Review: Studying Japan: Handbook of Research Designs, Fieldwork and Methods, New Voices in Japanese Studies, 13, 91-94, 2021, open access.
Introduction to the Special Issue, New Voices in Japanese Studies, 13, v-vii, 2021, open access.
Tokyo 2020 Olympics: Mushroom Cloud over Japan, Australian Policy and History, 2021, online article.
‘Nuclear geographies and nuclear issues’ International Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment and Technology, Becky Alexis‐Martin, Jonathon Turnbull, Luke Bennett, Matthew Bolton, Thom Davies, Gair Dunlop, Dimity Hawkins, Rebecca H Hogue, Philippa Holloway, Stephanie A Malin, Talei Luscia Mangioni, Chloe Mayoux, Gwyn McClelland, Teva Meyer, Linda Ross, 2021.
Multiple other publications listed on Google Scholar
Recent Conference Papers, Invited Talks
Asian Studies Association of Australia, ‘Covid-19, the 2020(1) Olympics, and Memory’ (2022)
Australian Historical Association, ‘From traumatic experience to pioneer in Meiji Japan’ (2022)
13 April 2022: ANU Japan Institute Seminar Series, Australian National University, ‘The Transference of Trauma and Nagasaki Narratives’, recording on ANU website.
Monash History, History Council Victoria and Old Treasury Museum with Prof. Robin Gerster, and Dimity Hawkins AM at the Old Treasury Museum.
Community and Advocacy Organisation Collaborations
External Profiles
Related Links
Public Lecture National Library of Australia, 2023.
New Books Network Interview with co-editor Hannah Gould, and Rituparna Patgiri about Aromas of Asia
Further Information
Over the last six years, Gwyn has taught and lectured undergraduates and postgraduates in Global and transnational history courses, Japanese language and bilingualism within the Arts and Education Faculties at Monash University and in Japanese at the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University.
