Schedule
Nov. 27, 2024 | 4:00–5:30 PM
Room
Rm 4, Jade-Onyx
Moderator
Cervantes Fabros
Aliguyon–University of the Philippines Folklorists, Inc.
C4.1
Paper City: Examining the Un/written Metropolis in Filipino Contemporary Novels
Jonah Leigh E. Ramos
De La Salle University-Manila
This paper argues that paper plays a central role both in maintaining and refuting the images of the city. Adopting Elmo Gonzaga’s framework of using infrastructure as method (2020) to better and critically understand contemporary life in Southeast Asian megacities, this paper positions the policies, reports, contracts, and scholarly output found within the novels of Jun Cruz Reyes’s Ang Huling Dalagang Bukid at Ang Authobiography na Mali: Isang Imbestigasyon (2011) and Glenn Diaz’s The Quiet Ones (2017) as crucial infrastructures of Manila, and examines their materiality and representations vis-a-vis the lived experiences of the people concerned with their existence. Textual analysis reveals how property easily becomes an urban myth highlighted by the fragility of the city’s paper foundations. Hardly representative of realities, papers taken as hard facts become central to anti-poor laws and norms and the academicization of advocacy. Ultimately, this critique aims to highlight the necessary role of literature in magnifying the inconsistencies in the promises of neoliberal globalization.
C4.2
Manila Beyond Itself: Mapping the Urban Fabric in Contemporary Philippine Novels
Dania G. Reyes
University of the Philippines Diliman
Despite the resurgence of interest in urban studies during the last couple of decades, it is hardly present in critical explorations of Philippine literary texts. Furthermore, Philippine studies on spatiality and cityscapes focus on urban centers themselves, but not on how the urban fabric is created per se. By focusing on the urban fabric, this study considers how the depictions of space in the selected novels reflect and contribute to the tempering of cityscapes and evolving urban realities. In particular, I examine how contemporary Philippine novels in English create realized space in fiction and how this overlaps with the real, lived space it is based on. The study further looks into how these spaces create subjectivities and how these subjectivities in turn influence both fictional and real, lived space. Lastly, the study also inquires into how the urban spatial fabric is constructed by literary works. This study interrogates and evaluates the city not just as the center of urbanization, but also what makes it so—in particular, the relationship and contradictions between spatial peripheries and the urban center. My research suggests that through illustrating the contradictions between urban and rural areas in the Philippines, the novels also expose what constitutes the urban fabric of the country, and that it is primarily through maintaining these contradictions that the urban center exists. This study aims to contribute to the critical body of work in Philippine literary studies which explores the interstices of literary criticism and geographical and urban studies, offering a literary viewpoint into the study of urban geography, and a geographical perspective into studying Philippine literature.
C4.3
Hinggil sa Radikal na Sandali sa Dalumat ng Panahon sa Panitikan ng Kilusang Panlipunan: Ilang Tala sa Dagling “Oras-Pilipino” at Tulang “Pag-aaral sa Oras”
Jomar G. Adaya
Polytechnic University of the Philippines
Tinatangka sa papel na matalakay ang posibilidad ng materyalisasyon ng “radikal na sandali” sa maiikling anyo ng panitikan, mula sa pag-ugat nito sa politika ng dalumat ng “panahon” at sa konteksto ng kilusang panlipunan. Tatalakayin ang mga posibilidad ng pagdalumat sa pamamagitan ng maiikling anyo ng malikhaing akdang iniluwal sa konteksto ng pagsulong ng kasaysayan ng Kilusang Pambansa Demokratiko sa Pilipinas. Dalawang akda ang tuon ng papel: ang dagling “Oras-Pilipino” mula sa antolohiya na Mga Butil at Katas (1985); at ang tulang “Pag-aaral sa Oras” ng manunulat-rebolusyonaryo na si Kerima Lorena Tariman (2017). Bukod sa kapwa tumatalakay sa mga partikular na usapin ng “panahon” o “time” sa konteksto ng kilusang panlipunan, ang pagpili sa partikular na akda at anyo ay nakaangkla sa pagbibigay-saysay ng Kilusang Pambansa Demokratiko sa gampanin ng mga maiikling anyo ng panitikan para sa kagyat na pangangailangan at mabilisang pagkilos bunsod ng lohika ng rebolusyonaryong praktika ng kultural na produksyon. Nais patunayan sa papel ang kongkretong bisyon hinggil sa dalumat ng panahon ng panitikan ng kilusang panlipunan na hindi lamang naglalayong payak na ilarawan ang mga partikularidad ng pagdanas sa panahon, kundi higit ay diskursuhin ang mga kontradiksyon at lumikha ng politikal na direksyon tungo sa kritikang panlipunan at kolektibong aksyon. Sa ganitong punto, tinitingnan ang radikal na sandali bilang akto ng pag-antala o pagsalunga sa tinatawag ni Walter Benjamin na “pare-pareho at hungkag na panahon” (salin ni Guillermo 2013), isang anyo ng kontra-sandali na mababakas sa panitikan ng kilusang panlipunan.
C4.4
Reimagining Histories: The Impact of a Japanese Settler Colonialism in the Philippines in the Marites Khanser and Lilian dela Peña’s Japan Imagined: Tale of a Bagobo Tagabawa Nikkeijin
Farah Aimee Virador
University of the Philippines Mindanao
My research explores how the novel Japan Imagined: Tale of A Bagobo Tagabawa Nikkeijin by Marites Khanser and Lilian dela Peña reimagines the history of Japanese colonizers in the Philippines, particularly in the context of their violent actions during the Second World War. I argue that this 21st-century reimagining aims to reshape the construction of the histories and identities of Bagobo-Tagabawa Japanese descendants, who are referred to in the novel as “nikkeijins.” It underscores the continuing impact of Asian settler colonialism on Indigenous lands, cultural erasure, and economic exploitation, while highlighting the resilience of the Bagobo Tagabawa people in preserving their identity and heritage amidst continuing marginalization. The narrative, I argue, serves as a reminder of the enduring implications of historical injustices and calls for a nuanced understanding of cultural identity, social justice, and the need for recognition and reconciliation in shaping a more equitable future for Indigenous communities.