Thomas McDonald

Thomas McDonald is an Assistant Professor of Japanese studies in the EALC. He researches modern and contemporary Japanese literature in interdisciplinary and comparative contexts, especially questions of literary language, geopolitics, and philosophy in dialogue with cultural phenomena from East Asia, Central Europe, and Latin America. He is an affiliated member of KU's Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS), Center for Russian, East European, & Eurasian Studies (CREES), and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS). 

Thomas's current book project traces the transnational intellectual lineage of Japanese-Korean writer and dancer Lee Yangji by examining her connections to Korean ethnomusicology and Germany philosophy. The book aims to widen scholarly focus from her status within Zainichi Korean literary studies to her resonance with South Korea’s democratization in the 1980s, ultimately as a way to rethink the politics of diaspora studies.

At KU since 2023, Thomas teaches courses on Japan as well as East Asian more broadly. Recent courses include Japan’s Minorities, Introduction to Contemporary Japan through Media, Business Japanese, and Translating East Asian Languages: Theory and Practicum. He oversees the KU Core 34 “Global Culture" course, Eastern Civilizations (ECIV 104)

Thomas is also active in the field of Slovene studies, with publications on Austrian-Slovene writers Peter Handke and Fabjan Hafner. He has been teaching the Slovene language through the San Francisco Bay Area’s Club Slovenia since 2022.