| Summary: | Territorial disputes between Japan and South Korea (Dokdo/Takeshima) and Japan, Taiwan, and China (the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands) are characteristic of post-war East Asian diplomacy. This thesis explores these ongoing territorial disputes, problematizing Realist arguments by which these disputes are analyzed as matters of territorial or resource nationalism, or as the result of legal complications or security concerns. Instead, it is argued that we should look to ideologies of nationalism to understand seemingly extreme emotional reactions over these 'rocks' which threaten to destabilize Northeast Asia. These islands are treated as 'sublime' symbols of the nation and irredentist arguments which support the Japanese, Korean, and Chinese positions read history through a lens of essentialized notions of 'a people' or 'a nation', and in the process help define both.
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