Women's bodies contributed to the expansion of the Japanese empire. With this bold opening, Noriko J. Horiguchi sets out in Women Adrift to show how women's actions and representations of women's bodies redrew the border and expanded, rather than transcended, the empire of Japan.

Discussions of empire building in Japan routinely employ the idea of kokutai--the national body--as a way of conceptualizing Japan as a nation-state. Women Adrift demonstrates how women impacted this notion, and how women's actions affected perceptions of the national body....

Women's bodies contributed to the expansion of the Japanese empire. With this bold opening, Noriko J. Horiguchi sets out in Women Adrift to show how women's actions and representations of women's bodies redrew the border and expanded, rather than transcended, the empire of Japan.

Discussions of empire building in Japan routinely employ the idea of kokutai--the national body--as a way of conceptualizing Japan as a nation-state. Women Adrift demonstrates how women impacted this notion, and how women's actions affected perceptions of the national body....