Research

My doctoral research involves using large corpora of Russian and Ukrainian Gulag works, both literary and documentary, to build the first full-length study of homosexuality in Gulag writing. Using sources by both queer and straight prisoners, I hope to contribute to scholarly understanding of how queer prisoners experienced the Soviet carceral system, and how this experience was shaped by the views of their (mostly straight) peers.

More broadly, I examine the role that gender and sexuality played in the camps as a whole, often influencing how different prisoners interacted and, ultimately, which were more likely to survive. I also explore how queer prisoners write about their sexuality in a context where male homosexuality was illegal and female homosexuality was often perceived as a mental illness, analysing how discussions of homosexuality can be hidden within texts that may seem heterosexual at first glance. My project also seeks to question the extent to which we perceive the Soviet dissident movement as truly liberal, given that many key dissidents' works evidence nothing short of sheer disgust towards the notion of homosexuality.

Finally, I look at the alarming continuities between the Soviet penal system and the prisons, torture chambers, and camps of modern-day Russia (which hold, among others, Ukrainian prisoners of war, and dissenters of the Putin regime), tracing how attitudes that began to liberalise in the late 1990s and early 2000s are regressing – especially following the passing of the gay propaganda law in 2013, the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and ensuing war, and the Russian government's classification of the international LGBTQ+ movement as a terrorist organisation in 2024.

I am supervised by Professor Polly Jones, and my project is generously funded by the Wolfson Postgraduate Scholarship in the Humanities, and the Woodward-Allen Scholarship at Wadham College.

Background

Before starting my DPhil, I completed an MSt in Modern Languages (Russian) at New College, Oxford, achieving a distinction. My Master's was funded by the Reynolds Studentship in Modern Languages, and my thesis, for which I was awarded the Faculty Prize for Best Master's Dissertation in Russian Studies, explored the role of homophobia and queer caricature in Soviet literary propaganda and Gulag fiction from the 1930s to the 1980s.

Prior to this, I graduated from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, in 2025 with a first-class BA in Modern Languages (French and Russian). During this time, I also studied abroad at the École normale supérieure de Lyon, France, and Daugavpils Universitāte, Latvia. I wrote my undergraduate coursework dissertation on the obfuscation of queer identity in diaries, songs, and poetry by Gulag prisoners Vadim Kozin and Anna Barkova. 

I have also worked as a translator and research assistant at the Kasteev State Art Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Outreach

I love sharing my passion for languages, and advocating for young people to recognise the importance of learning languages, and to consider studying them at school and university. I am proud to have been educated at state comprehensive schools, and I am passionate about encouraging people from all kinds of different backgrounds – especially those not historically/traditionally well-represented at Oxford – to consider applying to top universities, and to recognise that they belong. Since 2021, I have been involved in the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages' outreach programme, helping at open days and events in Oxford, and visiting schools. More recently, I have also started delivering introductory workshops (on Ukrainian or Russian language and culture) to schoolchildren visiting the university, hoping to broaden their horizons to consider studying languages that they would typically not have the chance to study at school via the fabulous beginners' languages programmes available at university.  

Conference papers and presentations

  • ‘Camp in the Camps: Casual Homophobia and Queer Caricature in Soviet-Era Gulag Fiction’, Slavonic Research Seminar, University of Oxford, June 2026
  • ‘Queer Creative Lives in and after the Gulag: The Diaries, Songs, and Poetry of Vadim Kozin and Anna Barkova’, Junge Slavistik im Dialog XX International Conference, Christian-Albrechts-Universität, Kiel, Germany, April 2026
  • ‘Queer Creative Lives in and after the Gulag: The Diaries, Songs, and Poetry of Vadim Kozin and Anna Barkova’, Queer Intersections Oxford Graduate Research Network, The Oxford Research Centre for the Humanities, University of Oxford, November 2025

Publications

  • Pearne, James, ‘Queer Creative Lives in and after the Gulag: The Diaries, Songs, and Poetry of Vadim Kozin and Anna Barkova’, Beiträge zur XX. Internationalen Slavistischen Konferenz, Junge Slavistik im Dialog, 15 [forthcoming]
  • Kobzhanova, Svetlana, and Akzharkyn Kumarbaeva, ‘Institutional Art Criticism in 20th- and 21st-Century Kazakhstan’, trans. by James Pearne, Central Asian Journal of Art Studies, 9.3 (2024), pp. 16–32, doi:10.47940/cajas.v9i3.918