Faculty Profile

Nan Ma

Associate Professor of East Asian Studies (2015)

Contact Information

on sabbatical 2025-26

mana@dickinson.edu

Stern Center for Global Educ Room 108

Bio

Professor Ma's teaching and research fields include modern Chinese literature, visual culture, and performance studies. She has published in several peer-reviewed journals, including Modern Chinese Literature and Culture (MCLC), China Perspectives, and Beijing Dance Academy Journal, and the anthology Corporeal Politics: Dancing East Asia (edited by Katherine Mezur and Emily Wilcox, University of Michigan Press, 2020). Professor Ma also serves as an editorial board member for the Dance Research Journal (DRJ), starting in September 2022. Her book, When Words are Inadequate: Modern Dance and Transnationalism in China, is published by Oxford University Press in 2023. She teaches all levels of Chinese language and topic courses, such as "Modern Chinese Performances Culture," "Chinese Science Fiction and Film," and "Cities in Chinese Literature, Film, and Visual Arts." Professor Ma is currently working on her second book project about war and dance in twentieth-century China.

Education

  • B.A., Peking University, 2004
  • M.A., Tsinghua University, 2007
  • Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2015