CJS Research Webinar: Disaster Memory with Richard Lloyd-Parry and Dr Mark Pendleton

Thursday 5 November
13:00-14:00 BST
Zoom Webinar

For our second CJS Research Webinar of the academic year, we are joined by The Times Asia Editor Richard Lloyd-Parry and the University of Sheffield’s Dr Mark Pendleton to discuss disaster memory in Japan. Discussion will be moderated by Nadine Willems, Lecturer of History at UEA, and Oliver Moxham, Project Support Officer at the Sainsbury Institute. As we approach the 10th anniversary of the 3/11 nuclear disaster at Fukushima, we discuss the social memory of the disaster with acclaimed foreign correspondent Richard Lloyd-Parry whose award-winning 2017 book Ghosts of the Tsunami explores its reverberating impact on a regional, communal and social level. Dr Mark Pendleton, whose research on disaster memory includes extensive studies of the 1995 Aum sarin attack in Tokyo, shares his insights on how memory forms in the wake of disasters. The session will be rounded off by discussion between the participants formed by the Q&A.

About the speakers

Richard Lloyd-Parry is a writer and foreign correspondent for The Times (London) as the Asia Editor based in Tokyo. He has written several works documenting years of coverage of momentous events in recent Japanese history including the trial of Joji Obara in People Who Eat Darkness and the aftermath of the 3/11 disaster in Ghosts of the Tsunami. The latter has been hailed as one of the best books of 2017 by The Guardian, NPR, GQ, The Economist, Bookforum, Amazon and Lit Hub for its powerful account of the circumstances around the disaster which claimed 18,000 lives.  

Dr Mark Pendleton is a social and cultural historian at the School for East Asian Studies at the University of Sheffield. His research is interdisciplinary in nature, drawing from history, cultural studies, memory studies, literature, geography and critical theory. Mark’s doctoral thesis explored how the 1995 Tokyo subway gassing is remembered politically and culturally in the context of postwar Japan through various forms of life writing and memorial practices. While developing his doctoral research into a book manuscript Mark’s latest research projects focus on modern ruins and industrial heritage in Japan and on queer/LGBT literary figures in postwar Japan.