I am currently a doctoral candidate in History at the University of Zurich (Switzerland), where I study the history of agricultural science in modern Japan and Taiwan. Specifically, I look at how premodern Confucian ideologies of agrarian statecraft translate into the epistemology and politics of modern agricultural science, as well as how its legacies continue through empire into foreign aid today. You can read more about my project here.

I have an eclectic background with interests somewhere between political science and literary criticism that I bring to my more recent work on the history of science. You may know me from my writing on Japanese web novels [1][2] or the politics of contemporary aesthetics [1][2]; I have also written a bit about the philosophy of history [1][2] and Lacanian psychoanalysis [1]. I am a polyglot and speak fluent English, French, Chinese, and Japanese (German is still a work in progress!).

On this website, you can find an abbreviated CV and PDF downloads of my publications. You can also catch my unhinged musings on Bluesky, or reach me via email at scott.ma[at]uzh.ch.

The image to the right is a depiction of farmer-soldiers created by bureaucrats at the Hokkaido Kaitakushi in early Meiji Japan, held at the Hokkaido Museum.