Absolute Erotic, Absolute Grotesque
The Living, Dead, and Undead in Japan's Imperialism, 1895-1945

A major rethinking of Japanese imperialism in Asia using subaltern postcolonial studies and Marxism to focus attention on the role of human life and labour in colonial expansion

Focusing on Japan's Manchukuo colony in the third phase, he shows what happens to the central figures of biopolitics as they are subsumed under necropolitical capitalism: coolies become forced labourers, pimps turn into state officials and authorized narcotraffickers and sex workers become "comfort women." Driscoll concludes by discussing Chinese fiction written inside Manchukuo, describing the everyday violence unleashed by necropolitics.

Preface
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations Introduction Part I. Biopolitics 1. Cool(ie) Japan
2. Peripheral Pimps
3. Empire in Hysterics
4. Stubborn Farmers and Grotesqued Korea Intertext I. A Korean is being beaten
I, a Japanese colonizer, am being beaten Part II. Neuropolitics 5. All That's Solid Melts into Modern Girls and Boys
6. Revolutionary Pornography and the Declining Rate of Pleasure Intertext II. Neuropolitics Sprouts Fangs Part III. Necropolitics 7. The Opiate of the (Chinese) People
8. Japanese Lessons Conclusion: Bare Labor and the Empire of the Living Dead Notes
Bibliography
Index