Faculty Members
Dr. KOVACIC Mateja
Assistant Professor
| PhD, Humanities and Creative Writing | |
| (852) 3411-8231 | |
| mateja@hkbu.edu.hk | |
| CVA Room 946 |
Mateja is a cultural anthropologist, historian, and philosopher of science, technology, and popular culture. She is especially interested in the intersections between them and what their relations can do for our rethinking of the existing epistemologies of nature, culture, nonhuman and human. Mateja’s special focus is Japanese culture in a transnational perspective which she brings forward in challenging West-centric narratives of science, technology, and popular culture. She is currently working on a Research Grants Council Early Career Scheme project Transnational anarchist digital networks: Japanese animation & civic imagination in Hong Kong’s social movement. Previously, as a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, Mateja researched robotics and artificial intelligence in Japan. Her most recent work is a co-edited volume with Hiroshi Aoyagi and Patrick W. Galbraith Idology in Transcultural Perspective: Anthropological Investigations of Popular Idolatry (2021), and Urban AI in China: Social Control or Hyper-Capitalist Development in the Post-Smart City? co-authored with Simon Marvin, Aidan While & Bei Chen (2022). Mateja has an ongoing book project on scientific knowledge and popular culture in transnational Japan through weird scientific fancies of the Edo period.
Research interests
Science
Technology
Popular culture
Japanese culture
Publications
Books:
Idology in Transcultural Perspective: Anthropological Investigations of Popular Idolatry. Co-editor with Hiroshi Aoyagi & Patrick W. Galbraith. Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. Link: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-82677-2
Book chapters
“Cyborg in Idology Studies: Symbiosis of Animating Humans and Machines.” Idology in Transcultural Perspective: Anthropological Investigations of Popular Idolatry. Hiroshi Aoyagi, Patrick W. Galbraith, Mateja Kovacic (Eds.). Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.
“On Popular Idolatry: A Reflexive Symbological Spin,” with Hiroshi Aoyagi. Idology in Transcultural Perspective: Anthropological Investigations of Popular Idolatry. Hiroshi Aoyagi, Patrick W. Galbraith, Mateja Kovacic (Eds.). Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.
Journal articles
“Urban AI in China: Social Control or Hyper-Capitalist Development in the Post-Smart City?” with Simon Marvin, Aidan While & Bei Chen. Frontiers in Sustainable Cities, 2022.
“Making space for drones: The contested reregulation of airspace in Tanzania and Rwanda,” with Andy Lockhart, Simon Marvin, Aidan H. While, Nancy Odendaal & Christian Alexander Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 2021.
“Tecno-especies: la humanidad que se hace a sí misma y los desechables,” with María G. Navarro. Bajo Palabra. Il Epoca. Revista de Filosofía 27, 2021. Link: https://revistas.uam.es/bajopalabra/article/view/bp2021_27_002
“Neo-ethnic Self-styling among Young Indigenous People of Brazil: Re-appropriating Ethnicity through Cultural Hybridity,” with Hiroshi Aoyagi & Steven Baines. Vibrant 17, 2020.
“Urban robotic experimentation: Tokyo, Dubai and California,” with Simon Marvin & Aidan H. While. Urban Studies, 2020.
“The making of national robot history in Japan: Monozukuri, enculturation and cultural lineage of robots.” Critical Asian Studies 50(3), 2018.
Awards/Grants/Honors
Project name: Transnational anarchist digital networks: Japanese animation & civic imagination in Hong Kong’s social movement
Awards name: Research Grants Council Early Career Scheme
Year: 2021-2024