Jiaying Shen

My doctoral project explores how the turbulent formulation of the Japanese maritime empire contributed to and responded to the changing conditions of nations and empires. Combing through a plethora of governmental correspondence, legal case reports, nautical charts, and historic films, I seek to illustrate that the ocean is not only a passageway for empires facilitating their colonial expansion, but also a highly contested space for the territorial and imperial ambitions of empires. My dissertation examines the evolving official conceptualizations of the sea in Japan, as well as the oft-neglected role of the Japanese empire in the malleable global maritime order. It captures a crucial moment of transition for Japan, from a period when the authorities had almost no sense of maritime territory to an era when the government sought to territorialize vast areas of ocean and meanwhile represented itself as an arbiter of navigational freedom through its skillful use of nautical charts and international law.