Maki Nakai — 中井 真木

Associate Professor, School of International Liberal Studies, Waseda University

Welcome to this page.

I am a researcher and teacher of premodern Japanese history. My research focuses on classical history and culture, with particular attention to the ways political power was exercised through norms and deviance, the biases embedded in historical records, and the role of “outsiders” in embodying and transmitting tradition. I have explored these themes through the study of male court attire from the Heian to Kamakura periods. More recently, my work has expanded to examine how Heian-era traditions were interpreted and studied during the Edo period.

After earning two B.A.s from the University of Tokyo, first in Letters with an archaeology major and then in Arts and Sciences with a major in interdisciplinary Japanese cultural studies, I completed the graduate program of Comparative Literature and Culture at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo, receiving an M.A. and Ph.D. in Arts and Sciences.

Since my graduate studies, I have had numerous opportunities to teach and work in English. I served as a full-time English instructor at the Graduate School of Meiji University for eight years, while also teaching Japanese history and culture in both English and Japanese at several universities in Tokyo. Since 2025, I have been a faculty member at the School of International Liberal Studies, Waseda University.

For further details, please see my CV at https://researchmap.jp/7000001777 and my self-introduction upon joining SILS: https://www.waseda.jp/fire/sils/news/2025/05/08/22493/.