Rate My Professor Laura Clark

Dr. Laura Emily Clark is a Lecturer in Beginners Japanese and Japanese culture in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at the University of New England. Her research specializations include the representation of cultural norms, values, and ideologies within popular culture; masculinity and gender ideals in the works of Haruki Murakami; Australian reception of Japanese fiction; language learning, student motivations, accessible and equitable online teaching; embodiment; and Japanese foodways. Her primary research areas are Japanese, contemporary literature, gender, and society. Clark teaches Japanese language, popular culture, and sociolinguistics, contributing to students' engagement with Japanese society through linguistic and cultural perspectives.

Clark has produced key publications in prominent academic presses and journals. These include “A Stranger in a Familiar Land: A Domestic Student Relocates,” in Elizabeth Allotta (ed.), Different Perspectives, Different Cultures, Different Places: The Experiences of International and Domestic Students Studying in an Australian University (BRILL, 2023); “Murakami Haruki and Tawada Yōko: Narrativising Cultural Traumas in a Transcultural Space,” in Barbara Hartley and Akiko Uchiyama (eds), Border-Crossing Japanese Literature: Reading Multiplicity (Routledge, 2023); ‘Embodied Consequences, Doing Jishuku and Staying Home: Literary depictions of Japan’s Covid-19 disaster response,’ Gender, Place and Culture (2022); ‘Girls (and Boys) Debating Democracy in Aoi Sanmyaku,’ co-authored with Kenko Kawasaki, Japanese Studies, vol. 12, Special Issue: Youth and Democracy in Postwar Japan (2022); “Gender in Japanese Literature and Literary Studies,” co-authored with Lucy Fraser, in Jennifer Coates, Lucy Fraser, and Mark Pendleton (eds), The Routledge Companion to Gender and Japanese Culture (Routledge, 2020); “The Australian Literary Scene and Murakami Haruki: Nobel Laureate Heir Apparent or Marketing Overhype?,” in David Chapman and Carol Hayes (eds), Japan in Australia: Culture, Context and Connection (Routledge, 2020); ‘Masculinity as a Heteroglossic Performance in Haruki Murakami’s A Wild Sheep Chase,’ New Voices in Japanese Studies, vol. 9 (2017); and ‘Negotiating the Salaryman’s Hegemonic Masculinity in Murakami’s A Wild Sheep Chase,’ Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies, vol. 15, no. 3 (2015). She serves as Editor for Literary Studies in the Japanese Studies journal and co-convened the Japanese Studies Association of Australia conference in 2025 at the University of New England.