Dr Gwyn McClelland is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics (LLLC). An oral historian, he conducts research engaging with religious discourses in memory and history. Interested in emotion in testimonial narration, he explores how trauma studies intersects with feminist theology, with insights for memory studies. His first monograph discussed how the atomic bombing of Nagasaki marginalised an already discriminated-against community, the Catholics. Interviewing nine Catholic survivors of the bombing, Gwyn found that the ancestors of these interviewees were ‘Hidden Christians’, who had returned to Catholicism after two-hundred and fifty years of persecution. Gwyn is co-editing a book to be published by Penn State University Press, entitled ‘Aromas of Asia: Exchanges, Histories, Threats’. Gwyn has additionally recently completed fieldwork in the Goto Archipelago, Japan.
Gwyn was a Japan Foundation Fellow in 2022, and is a current National Library of Australia Fellow.