Scott Ma: Doctoral Student

I study the history of developmental ideologies in modern Japan. I have training in political science, literature, and cultural studies, and take an interdisciplinary, theoretically rigorous approach to history. In my free time, I also write about the philosophy of history, psychoanalysis, and Japanese popular culture in global perspective.

I am a polyglot and connecting with scholars across languages is important to me. Feel free to write to me in English, French, Chinese, Japanese, or German.

I also maintain a professional website at scott-ma.com, from which you can download copies of currently embargoed works.

Publications:

(Forthcoming) “A lesson in port citizenship: Regimes of historicity in maritime museums in Yokohama, Japan, 1961-Present." História da Historiografia.

(Forthcoming) “Fantasies of Europe, fantasies of Japan: Isekai and the narrative logic of Japanese Occidentalism.” East Asian Journal of Popular Culture 9(2).

2023. (with Mariana Alonso Ishihara) "Multiculturalism between ideology and practice: Immigrant self-narrations of community activism in Toyota, Japan." Contemporary Japan. https://doi.org/10.1080/18692729.2023.2220467

2023. "Global history in two chronotopes: Time, identity, and the practical past in Nagasaki, Japan, 1990 and 2006." Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice 27(2): 312-339. https://doi.org/10.1080/13642529.2023.2206727.

2023. "The Politics of Curating Japonisme: International Art Exhibition and Soft Power in Contemporary Japanese Cultural Diplomacy." Journal of Japonisme 8 (1): 31-66. https://doi.org/10.1163/24054992-08010001.

Formation:

2021-2023: Waseda University, Japan, MA in International Relations, Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies

2020-2021: Nagoya University, Japan, Research Student in Cultural Studies, School of Humanities

2019: Swarthmore College, USA, BA with High Honors, History and French Literature

Contact:

scott.ma@uzh.ch