{"product_id":"absolute-erotic-absolute-grotesque-9780822347613","title":"Absolute Erotic Absolute Grotesque","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA major rethinking of Japanese imperialism in Asia using subaltern postcolonial studies and Marxism to focus attention on the role of human life and labor in colonial expansion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[A] highly imaginative study. . . . By bringing the painful human cost of empire to the forefront in a way that few other scholars writing in English have, and linking those costs to larger economic structures and cultural phenomena, Driscoll has made a significant contribution to the growing field of Japanese colonial studies.”\u003cbr\u003e - ERIK ESSELSTROM,\u003ci\u003e American Historical Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A good book teaches you things you don’t know. A very good book does that and also changes the way you think about things in general. Mark Driscoll’s recent study, \u003ci\u003eAbsolute Erotic, Absolute Grotesque\u003c\/i\u003e examines labor and social change in the days of the Japanese empire, and it is a very good book.” - Alexis Dudden, \u003ci\u003eMonumental Nipponica\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[A] thought-provoking narrative of Japanese imperialism. . . . The book not only conceptualizes theoretical literatures of postcolonial studies and Marxism but also suggests concrete historical knowledge. I believe the book will attract readers not only in history but also comparative literature, cultural studies, psychology and philosophy.” - Sang Mi Park,\u003ci\u003e Pacific Affairs\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[P]rovocatively argued and spiritedly written. . . . an audacious book. Bold, challenging, and refreshingly unrestrained by snooze-inducing generic conventions, Driscoll unapologetically shoves you into the muck of Japan’s modernity, breaches those vast colonial silences that ‘absorb all behavior, no matter how dirty, how animal it gets,’ and somehow makes the experience pleasurable. I can’t help but desire to be shoved further, past 1945, to trace vampiric revenants of the bio\/neuro\/necropolitical in postwar Japan. Perhaps there’s a sequel to be made.” - Gerald Figal, \u003ci\u003eJournal of Japanese Studies\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Driscoll squarely confronts the real human costs of Japanese imperialism. He rightly demands that the problem of colonial labour be placed at the centre of abstract discussions of ‘resources,’ modernization, and late development. He also skillfully exposes the ‘ideological fantasy’ of Japan’s wartime leaders and the ways in which ‘civilizer\/looter’ represented two sides of the same imperialist coin.” - Janis Mimura,\u003ci\u003e Labour\/Le Travail \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eAbsolute Erotic, Absolute Grotesque\u003c\/i\u003e is a stupendous study of Japanese empire. While existing studies often revolve around the analysis of colonial institutions (such as the army, government, and market) and discourses of colonial modernity, Mark Driscoll takes us into a wholly different terrain of politics, bringing out of their historical coffins the ‘subaltern of the subaltern,’ from coolies, human traffickers, prostitutes, hustlers, and drug dealers to comfort women and suicidal soldiers.”—\u003cb\u003eHyun Ok Park\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003ci\u003eTwo Dreams in One Bed: Empire, Social Life, and the Origins of the North Korean Revolution in Manchuria\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eAbsolute Erotic, Absolute Grotesque\u003c\/i\u003e is not simply an informed account of Japan’s imperial adventure in Asia but also an original and thought-provoking rethinking of how we must proceed if we are to understand the dynamic relationship between the theoretically general and the historically concrete. One of the book’s principal effects is to liberate the discourse of postcolonialism from its dominant Anglo-Indian emphasis by grounding it in a different historical and imperial configuration.”—\u003cb\u003eHarry D. Harootunian\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Empire’s New Clothes: Paradigm Lost, and Regained\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This book will be an essential touchstone for our understanding of twentieth-century imperialism, and of the transformation of labor under twentieth-century capitalism. Mark Driscoll’s elaboration of the notion of the biopolitical is the most imaginative and productive use of the concept that I have seen. His meticulous and wide-ranging research, drawing on Chinese and Korean sources as well as on his thorough mastery of Japanese archival and scholarly literature, not only makes a clear case for the specificity of the Japanese imperial project but offers crucial genealogical insights into the emergence of modern East Asian regimes of capital. Written with commitment, wit, and vision, it is also a great pleasure to read.”—\u003cb\u003eChristopher Leigh Connery\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Empire of the Text: Writing and Authority in Early Imperial China\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[A] thought-provoking narrative of Japanese imperialism. . . . The book not only conceptualizes theoretical literatures of postcolonial studies and Marxism but also suggests concrete historical knowledge. I believe the book will attract readers not only in history but also comparative literature, cultural studies, psychology and philosophy.” -- Sang Mi Park * Pacific Affairs *\u003cbr\u003e“[P]rovocatively argued and spiritedly written. . . . an audacious book. Bold, challenging, and refreshingly unrestrained by snooze-inducing generic conventions, Driscoll unapologetically shoves you into the muck of Japan’s modernity, breaches those vast colonial silences that ‘absorb all behavior, no matter how dirty, how animal it gets,’ and somehow makes the experience pleasurable. I can’t help but desire to be shoved further, past 1945, to trace vampiric revenants of the bio\/neuro\/necropolitical in postwar Japan. Perhaps there’s a sequel to be made.” -- Gerald Figal * Journal of Japanese Studies *\u003cbr\u003e“A good book teaches you things you don’t know. A very good book does that and also changes the way you think about things in general. Mark Driscoll’s recent study, \u003ci\u003eAbsolute Erotic, Absolute Grotesque\u003c\/i\u003e examines labor and social change in the days of the Japanese empire, and it is a very good book.” -- Alexis Dudden * Monumenta Nipponica *\u003cbr\u003e“Driscoll squarely confronts the real human costs of Japanese imperialism. He rightly demands that the problem of colonial labour be placed at the centre of abstract discussions of ‘resources,’ modernization, and late development. He also skillfully exposes the ‘ideological fantasy’ of Japan’s wartime leaders and the ways in which ‘civilizer\/looter’ represented two sides of the same imperialist coin.” -- Janis Mimura * Labour\/Le Travail *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePreface ix\u003cbr\u003e Acknowledgments xvii\u003cbr\u003e Abbreviations xxi\u003cbr\u003e Introduction 1\u003cbr\u003e Part I. Biopolitics \u003cbr\u003e 1. Cool(ie) Japan 25\u003cbr\u003e 2. Peripheral Pimps 57\u003cbr\u003e 3. Empire in Hysterics 81\u003cbr\u003e 4. Stubborn Farmers and Grotesqued Korea 101\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003eIntertext I\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e. A Korean is being beaten; I, a Japanese colonizer, am being beaten 119\u003cbr\u003e Part II. Neuropolitics \u003cbr\u003e 5. All That's Solid Melts into Modern Girls and Boys 135\u003cbr\u003e 6. Revolutionary Pornography and the Declining Rate of Pleasure 161\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003eIntertext II\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e. Neuropolitics Sprouts Fangs 203\u003cbr\u003e Part III. Necropolitics \u003cbr\u003e 7. The Opiate of the (Chinese) People 227\u003cbr\u003e 8. Japanese Lessons 263\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eConclusion\u003c\/i\u003e: Bare Labor and the Empire of the Leaving Dead 295\u003cbr\u003e Notes 315\u003cbr\u003e Bibliography 327\u003cbr\u003e Index 345","brand":"Duke University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49406060888407,"sku":"9780822347613","price":21.59,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/absolute-erotic-absolute-grotesque-9780822347613","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}