Ang CAL Graduate Colloquium ay isang lunsaran ng mga gradwadong mag-aaral ng
Kolehiyo ng Arte at Literatura upang maiharap ang kanilang mga papel pananaliksik at/o
kasalukuyang proyektong pananaliksik sa mga kapwa gradwadong mag-aaral at mga
propesyonal sa partikular na mga larangan na siyang maaaring magbigay puna at
suhestiyon bilang mga kritiko. Layon nitong hikayatin ang mga gradwadong mag-aaral sa
higit na pagpapalawak sa mga napapanahong perspektiba at metodolohiya sa pananaliksik
na nagtatampok sa pagtataguyod ng inter-larangan at inobasyon. Ang pakikiisa sa
kolokyum na ito ay maaaring magsilbing inspirasyon at sanayan para sa pakikilahok at
pakikipagtalastasan sa iba pang lokal at internasyunal na kumperensiya.
The CAL Graduate Colloquium provides an avenue for CAL graduate students to present
their papers and ongoing research projects to fellow graduate students and specialists in
the field to receive professional feedback and peer critique. It aims to encourage graduate
students to explore new research perspectives and methodologies that promote
interdisciplinarity and innovation. Participation in this colloquium may serve as inspiration
and rehearsal for participation in other local and international conferences.
20 September 2014
Bulwagang Rizal (Faculty Center)
University of the Philippines, Diliman
PROGRAM
8:00 – 9:00 am
9:00 – 10:30 am
Bulwagang Rizal (FC) Lobby
REGISTRATION
Bulwagang Claro M. Recto
OPENING REMARKS
Prof. Odine Maria M. De Guzman, Ph.D.
PLENARY SPEAKERS
Myra C. Beltran
The Historical Plays of Virginia R. Moreno: a Frame within a Frame, a Trace of a Trace
Eilene Antoinette G. Narvaez
Sawikaan: Mga Salita ng Taon
(Isang Pagsusuri sa Sawikaan bilang Venue para Talakayin ang Trend o Pinagdaraanan
ng mga Salitang Pumapasok sa Wikang Filipino Sang-ayon sa Karanasan ng Lipunang
Filipino)
10:30 – 10:45 am
Galeria 3 (2 Floor)
MORNING COFFEE AND SNACKS
10:45 - 12:15 pm
PARALLEL SESSIONS A
nd
PANEL 1
Reading and Re-imagining Cultural Spaces
Arcellana Reading Room (1 Floor)
st
1. Rethinking Aesthetic of a Therapeutic Site: The Philippine Heart Center Hospital
Maria Angelica Viceral
2. Language Appropriation and Public-Sign Making:
Bourdieu and the Linguistic Landscape of Boracay, Philippines
Edecio Angelo R Venturanza
3. Making Space for a Museum of Everyday Life at the UP College of Home Economics
Maria Alicia Sarmiento
PANEL 2
Articulating Impressions, Communicating Values
CAL Audio-Visual Room (2 Floor)
nd
1. Onomatopoesis
Charina Vinuya Tianzon
2. The Role of Language(s) in the Global Marketing of the Philippines as an ESL Destination
Noela M. Lodevico-Palma
3. Confidence and WTC of Filipino Adolescents with Articulation Disorders
Karla Maolen B. Visbal
12:15 – 1:30 pm
Galeria 3 (2 Floor)
LUNCH - For Participants and Pre-registered Attendees
nd
1:30 – 3:00 pm
PARALLEL SESSIONS B
PANEL 3
Violent Erasures and the Reconstruction of Memories
Arcellana Reading Room (1 Floor)
st
1. Omitted Texts, Overwritten Codes and E-rased Works: A Cutback
Tilde Acuña
2. The Kids Must Die:
Memory and School Violence in Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk about Kevin
Leif Garinto
3. Remembering, Forgetting, and Imagining the Vietnam Tragedy:
The Reconstruction of American Personal and National Identities in David Rabe’s Trilogy
Roberta Mari Quiambao
PANEL 4
Cultural Concepts and the Contexts of Enunciation
CAL Audio-Visual Room (2 Floor)
nd
1. Isang Testimonya Migranteng Pinay bilang Nars, Nanny, Nanay:
Isang Testimonya sa Dulang Testimonya
Joanna Melody Lerio
2. The Translation of Honor and the Honor of Translation:
Elizabethan Politeness in Rolando S. Tinio’s Filipino Hamlet
Thomas David F. Chaves
3. Tracking the Duende: A Theoretical Approach to Achieving Said Affect in Written Poetry
Jacob Walse-Dominguez
3:00 – 3:15 pm
Galeria 3 (2 Floor)
AFTERNOON COFFEE AND SNACKS
3:15 – 4:45 pm
PARALLEL SESSIONS C
nd
PANEL 5
Popular Genres and Discursive Contexts
Arcellana Reading Room (1 Floor)
st
1. The Language of Love: A Micro-Macro Analysis of Code Switching in English in Selected
Filipino Romance Novels
Jocelyn A. S. Navera
2. The Crux of the Game: Formal and Genre Tropes, and Interpretative Schemes
Francis Paolo M. Quina
3. The Paradox of Fanfiction as a Democratic Discursive Practice:
The Case of Anime Fanfiction Writing
Ivy J. Antonio
PANEL 6
Narrative Forms and Socio-Cultural Histories
CAL Audio-Visual Room (2 Floor)
nd
1. The Fragmented Social History of Short Film Animation,
from Nonoy Marcelo’s Tadhana to the decline of film
Molinia Anne T. Velasco
2. In Sickness and in Wealth: The Politicization and Polarization of French Homosexuality
Richard Karl Deang
3. On Iwan Simatupang’s The Pilgrim: Novel, Narrative, and the Journey Beyond
Maria Amparo N. Warren
4:45 – 6:00 pm
Galeria 3 (2 Floor)
CLOSING REMARKS, SOCIALS (WINE AND SNACKS) – Open to all
nd
PLENARY SPEAKERS
Myra C. Beltran
The Historical Plays of Virginia R. Moreno: a Frame within a Frame, a Trace of a
Trace
Eilene Antoinette G. Narvaez
Sawikaan: Mga Salita ng Taon
(Isang Pagsusuri sa Sawikaan bilang Venue para Talakayin ang Trend o
Pinagdaraanan ng mga Salitang Pumapasok sa Wikang Filipino Sang-ayon sa
Karanasan ng Lipunang Filipino)
The Historical Plays of Virginia R. Moreno:
A Frame within a Frame, a Trace of a Trace
by Myra C. Beltran
With the goal of understanding how creative works dialogue with history, this thesis read
the historical plays of Virginia Moreno as re-readings of history. Moreover, the study also sought
to understand how Moreno’s re-reading of history comment on the writing of history.
Virginia Moreno wrote three historical plays written on the eve of the declaration of
martial rule in the Philippines, and the presentation will focus on the Indio Spoliarium, an
unpublished work. Cognizant of the criticism that postmodernism treats art works as ahistorical
and apolitical, the study benefited from the insights of the strategies used by the postmodern
novel called historiographic metafiction and its dramatic counterpart historiographic metatheatre,
whose proponents (i.e., Hutcheon and Feldman) insist that these fiction’s /drama’s process of
engagement provides access to the ideological sphere. Thus, the study proposed that those
postmodern strategies were usable for a postcolonial reading because the same strategies allowed
for a commentary on the writing of history.
To explain: analysis of Virginia Moreno’s historical plays reveal that one of the important
ways they comment on the writing of history is by referencing to themselves as art. They do this
by installing frames which they later transgress within the narratives. By this self-reflexivity, the
plays enact a subtle critique of the authoritarian regime. They also convey the sense that the
reader /spectator is not only part of the history which she/he is reading but that also she/he is
challenged to complete the writing of this history. In addition, there is an insertion of the body
in the narratives ‒ in bodily images, in the use of movement instead of words, and in the
acknowledgement of the presence of bodies of the characters and of the reader/spectator’s own
body. Such that when the plays become self-reflexive of themselves as art, they also make a
bodily connection to the reader/spectator who is now made aware of a shared presence of
bodies. In both their self-reflexivity and in the manner in which they insert the body in their
narratives, these plays negotiate censorship with the authoritarian regime and in this, achieve a
subversive potential.
Myra Beltran is a dancer and choreographer who holds a master’s degree in Comparative
Literature from the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City.
She received the 2001 Alab ng Haraya (Flame of Inspiration) for Individual Recognition in the
performing arts from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and the Tanging
Parangal (Highest Honor) from the City of Manila in 2007 for her work as a solo artist. Ms.
Beltran is the primary initiator and founding director of Wifi Body Festival and the
Contemporary Dance Map Series, two important contemporary dance initiatives whose frame
and guiding spirit is hers. She is also in the editorial board of The Modern Teacher magazine
and is part-time faculty at the UST Conservatory of Music and De la Salle College of St. Benilde.
Sawikaan: Mga Salita ng Taon
(Isang Pagsusuri sa Sawikaan bilang Venue para Talakayin ang Trend o Pinagdaraanan
ng mga Salitang Pumapasok sa Wikang Filipino Sang-ayon sa Karanasan ng Lipunang Filipino)
by Eilene Antoinette G. Narvaez
Sa pangkalahatan, layunin ng pananaliksik na ito na suriin ang halaga ng proyektong Sawikaan:
Salita ng Taon ng Filipinas Institute of Translation, Inc. (FIT) bilang venue ng talakayang pangwika na
nakatuon sa mga pumapasok na mga bagong salita at pagpapakahulugan sa wikang Filipino. Sa mas
espesipiko, nilalayon nitong: una, mailarawan ang kasaysayan ng Sawikaan: Salita ng Taon at maikompara
ito sa iba’t ibang idinadaos na Word of the Year ng American Dialect Society (ADS) na pinaghanguan
nito; ikalawa, matalakay ang pagpapakahulugan sa bawat nominadong salitang naitampok sa Sawikaan
batay sa iba’t ibang diksurso ng mga presenter, at masuri ito gamit ang Critical Discourse Analysis ni
Norman Fairclough (1995) upang matukoy ang mga salik na nagdedetrmina sa pamamayani ng mga
diskurso gayundin sa pagpili ng tatanghaling Salita ng Taon; ikatlo, mailarawan ang trend ng pagpasok ng
mga salita sa wikang Filipino—mula sa wikang mulaan hanggang sa diskursong pinaghahanguan at/o
lumilikha ng mga salita; ikaapat, masuri ang criteria at proseso ng pagpili ng Salita ng Taon gayundin ang
papel ng FIT bilang tagapagtaguyod o organisador ng proyekto; panghuli, matukoy ang ambag ng
Sawikaan bilang isang makabago at malikhaing paraan ng pag-aaral ng wika, bilang dokumentasyon ng
kasaysayan ng mga salita, at bilang mahalagang bátis sa pagdevelop ng isang espesyalisadong diksiyonaryo
sa iba-ibang larang ng pag-aaral o diskurso sa lipunang Filipino. Sa huli, inaasahang maibubuod ang lahat
ng salita bilang isang glosari.
Pangunahing materyal na ginamit sa pagsusuri ay ang anim na aklat ng Sawikaan 2004, 2005,
2006, 2007, 2010, at 2012. At sa kasalukuyan, kabuuang 73 salita na ang naipon ng Sawikaan at
nagsisilbing malaking tulong upang masuri ang trend pagpasok ng mga salita sa wikang Filipino.
Samantala, gamit ang teoryang CDA, tatlong mahalagang aspekto ang tiningnan sa pag-aaral na ito: una ay
ang Salita ng Taon bilang teksto; ikalawa ay ang mga presenter at FIT bilang mahahalagang personalidad
na dahilan ng tagumpay ng proyekto—ang FIT bilang tagapagtaguyod, at ang presenter bilang
pangunahing tagapagbigay ng kahulugan at saysay sa salita batay sa sariling danas sa lipunan at
obserbasyon; at ikatlo, ang pagpapakahulugan sa (mga) salita bilang bahagi ng sociocultural discourse o sa
mas madaling salita, pagpapakahulugan batay sa karanasan ng mas malawak na lipunan.
Buháy ang wikang Filipino, patuloy itong umuunlad at nadedevelop sa pamamagitan ng
impluwensiya ng iba-ibang larang ng buhay gaya ng ekonomiya, politika, agham, teknolohiya, sikolohiya,
sosyolohiya, edukasyon, kasaysayan, at dahil sa kontak ng mga Filipino sa iba-ibang wika, lahi, at kultura.
Kung sa bawat araw, may bagong isyu sa politika, may pag-angat-pagbagsak ng ekonomiya, may
kalamidad na nananalanta o epidemyang nakahahawa, may teknolohiyang naiimbento, at kasaysayang
patuloy na nagbabago, maraming salita ang nagkakaroon ng bagong kahulugan at tiyak na marami ring
bagong malilikha. Ito ang sinisikap na subaybayan ng Sawikaan. Sa pamamagitan ng pag-aaral na ito,
mauunawaan ang buong proseso ng Sawikaan mula sa kumperensiya, timpalak, at hanggang maging aklat.
Nagsisilbi rin itong paunang ebalwasyon sa Sawikaan bilang isa sa pinakatagumpay na proyekto ng FIT na
maaaring maging modelo ng iba pang katulad na organisasyon para mas maging seryoso sa pagtataguyod
ng mga proyektong ikasusulong ng Filipino bilang wikang pambansa.
Eilene Antoinette G. Narvaez ay kawani ng Sentro ng Wikang Filipino.
PANEL 1
Reading and Re-imagining Cultural Spaces
Arcellana Reading Room (1 Floor)
st
Rethinking Aesthetic of a Therapeutic Site: The Philippine Heart Center Hospital
Ma. Angelica Viceral
Language Appropriation and Public-Sign Making:
Bourdieu and the Linguistic Landscape of Boracay, Philippines
Edecio Angelo R Venturanza
Making Space for a Museum of Everyday Life at the UP College of Home Economics
Maria Alicia Sarmiento
Rethinking Aesthetic of a Therapeutic Site: The Philippine Heart
Center Hospital
by Maria Angelica Viceral
The Marcos Regime marked an important legacy in Philippine history, especially in its
narrative of propagating the importance of arts and culture through a “heritage industry” and the
building of iconic infrastructures, a syndrome Filipinos call, “Edifice Complex”. Both
phenomena framed in a utopian vision of an ideal city and the formation of “one nation”. Part
of this grand plan is the “Designer Hospitals” project, which included; The Philippine Heart
Center, Lung Center of the Philippines, National Kidney Transplant Institute and Philippine
Children’s Medical Center.
The paper focuses on The Philippine Heart Center Hospital which is core to the
Administration’s hospital project. This institution served not only as medical building, but as a
space that exhibit the grandeur of the administration’s support on the arts and political agenda.
This case of hospital planning rethinks aesthetics through embodiment: illness as
metaphor of modern city planning and the body. It approaches architecture not merely through
design and representation, but also through the experiences of the body in and around the
structure. For instance, how a person would feel while looking at an artwork inside the hospital
environment or how spatial experiences in the hospital can affect the well-being of a person. It
will analyze the aesthetic experience within a healthcare facility through its art and spatial
contexts while juxtaposing historical narratives of public health in the Philippines.
This project aims to contribute to the literature of art, healing and urban planning
through, as a humanities student, navigating the unfamiliar field of science while being guided by
architectural concepts and an exploration of multi-sensorial images of the hospital.
In setting interdisciplinary parameters of my research, I seek to articulate the gap
between tensions of the ocular centric inclination of the society and a scientific world within it.
Angelica Viceral is a graduate student under the program MA in Art History at the Department
of Art Studies, College of Arts and Letters. She is also a part time lecturer at the De Lasalle
College of Saint Benilde School of Design and Arts and a Recipient of the Asian Graduate
Fellowship 2014 from the National University of Singapore.
Language Appropriation and Public-Sign Making:
Bourdieu and the Linguistic Landscape of Boracay, Philippines
by Edecio Angelo R. Venturanza
The paper explores the linguistic landscape of Boracay, Philippines, and provides
quantitative data on public signs in the areas frequented by tourists and visitors on the island.
Relying heavily on Bourdieu's notion of the habitus, the paper offers insights on the language
ecology in Boracay, with focus on the appropriation of languages as a reflex of the habitus
behind the social practice of public sign-making. The paper demonstrates that the languages are
appropriated according to a set of sociocultural assumptions about local and foreign tourists. In
conclusion, the top-down, bottom-up strategy used in making an inventory of public signs is
scrutinized, while the uneven distribution of languages is construed as a by-product of "scaling"
in the Blommaertian sense.
Edecio Angelo R. Venturanza holds a BA degree in English Studies: Language from UP
DECL and is currently on the MA program of the CAL. For his graduate thesis, he intends to do
a linguistic landscape research that will focus on the sociolinguistics of public signs in the
province of Aklan. His undergraduate thesis entitled "The State-Controlled Nationalist
Discourse: Representation as Violence" is considered one of the earliest works in critical
discourse analysis in the country. It was presented at an international conference on language and
culture in Southeast Asia, organized by the DECL in 2000. He had years of teaching experience
at the tertiary level prior to his present employment as a senior editor of a news organization
based in Washington, D.C., U.S.A.
Making Space for a Museum of Everyday Life at the UP College of Home Economics
by Maria Alicia Sarmiento
This paper is a proposal to realize a Museum of Everyday Life at the University of the
Philippines College of Home Economics, applying critical theory to techniques of curatorship
and to conceptualize the relations between spaces and the agents that produce them. A Museum
of Everyday Life would not only store, collect, and exhibit objects, but would make space to
theorize the everyday, via Henri Lefebvre and Michel de Certeau’s critique and practice of
everyday life, as well as Sylvia Federici’s Wages Against Housework (1975).
Two collections in the possession of the College of Home Economics--a collection of
“native utensils” and a collection of “national costumes”--will form the palimpsest in
conceptualizing the permanent exhibition spaces at Alonzo Hall. These objects will open the
floor for debating common prescriptions for need, consumption, and utility – concepts integral
to the ontology and epistemology of the “everyday”, and its place in the Home Economics
curriculum. Due to a lack of written records clarifying the provenance of these pieces, the
Museum of Everyday Life would have to adopt or adapt a different set of methods as well as
objectives for the management and display of its collections, which will no doubt affect the
nature of this permanent exhibition.
Issues pertaining to the framing and displaying of the disciplines housed under Home
Economics (HE), and the manner by which these collections can define the “everyday” are
complicated by the role of the HE curriculum in enabling a patriarchal definition of femininity
that confines women to the domestic sphere. These further uncover and expose the divide
between private and public in an age of neoliberalism and globalization which have reconfigured
the concept of motherhood and the role of women in the Filipino family, making a Museum of
Everyday Life a space for negotiating shifts in pedagogy and politics in this dynamic economy
[1].
As part of Alonzo Hall—a fully-operational building in which the College’s departments
hold office—this museum becomes both the medium as well as the message for the political and
politicized pedagogy in which Home Economics is implicated, thus establishing the museum as
both institution and work, making it—in the words of Cuban artist, Tania Bruguera—a form of
“Art that does not point at the thing, but is the thing itself”.
[1] Note: These concepts have been exhaustively discussed in “Spaces for Stardom”, a paper published in 2013 by the
author in Plaridel: A Journal of Media, Communication, and Society.
Maria Alicia Sarmiento taught for 4 years at the College of Home Economics as an instructor in
Clothing Technology with the Department of Clothing, Textiles, and Interior Design. She is a freelance
writer, having contributed essays to the 2014 catalog for Art Fair Philippines, the Center for Art, New
Ventures, and Sustainable Development, and Contemporary Art Philippines magazine. She was also a
finalist in the Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Awards for Art Criticism and a participant in the 4th Former West
Research Congress and a presenter at the 2014 Spring Conference of the Cumulus Association of Arts
and Design Educators. She is currently finishing her MA in Museum Studies at the University of the
Philippines while training with the Assassination City Roller Derby league in Mesquite, Texas.
PANEL 2
Articulating Impressions, Communicating Values
CAL Audio-Visual Room (2 Floor)
nd
Onomatopoesis
Charina Vinuya Tianzon
The Role of Language(s) in the Global Marketing of the Philippines as an ESL Destination
Noela M. Lodevico-Palma
Confidence and WTC of Filipino Adolescents with Articulation Disorders
Karla Maolen B. Visbal
Onomatopoesis
by Charina Vinuya Tianzon
Sound is an important element in poetry. Aside from the fact that poetry uses letters and
words, which are products of sound, a poem is always judged according to how it sounds either
when recited and heard or when silently read (sound judgment-pun intended). It is no wonder,
then, that sound affects creativity in poetry. They are produced internally from one’s own
physiological rhythms and from the music in one’s head (mental hearing); or produced externally
from the environment through any sound experienced from the outside including language
spoken and heard, and, music heard and created (physical hearing).
The distinct effect of this process relies heavily on the fusion of sound and silence and
the tensions and resolutions involved in the entire process. The physical and mental hearing
combine and this fusion eventually becomes a basis of meaning in poetry, which is processed in
the mind and developed when asleep while the mind is unconscious; and is formed in dreams.
This happens as early as infancy and is developed through the course of one’s life. The Gestalt
Principle, which happens during infancy, helps in the early formation of abstract concepts.
Abstraction happens in the conceptualization process of art and is concretized through
Symbolism. These symbolic representations come together through a fusion known as
syncretism, viable in the formation of a creative work.
These influential sounds in dreams that inspire the creative process are represented
through poetry, for instance, in waking moments. Sounds from the environment are manifested
through the use of onomatopoeia. The sounds from one’s own physiological rhythms and the
influence of music created and heard are manifested through prosody. The sounds from the use
of language are manifested through syntax.
These representations, then, of sound and meaning are manifested in my poetry, heavily
influenced by music and performance, which is according to where I am coming from; my
subject position, then, is based in the fusion among the interdependence of both art forms’
constituents. Moreover, it exposes my background, intention, and evolution; and perhaps to a
greater extent, the significance of my work in the history of poetry.
Charms Tianzon is the singer-songwriter of the band Matilda. She teaches full-time at the MIT
International School and part-time at the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde. She has recently
presented a paper at a conference in Lingnan University in Hong Kong.
The Role of Language(s) in the Global Marketing of the Philippines
as an ESL Destination
by Noela M. Lodevico-Palma
The paper looks at the central role(s) of language(s) in the promotion of the Philippines
as a choice destination for English language learning through the ESL Tour Program launched
by the Department of Tourism in 2005.
First, the program (language tourism, in general) is seen to be an assertion of
“polynomia” or the legitimation of multiple centers for the extraction and production of goods
and services as the market becomes saturated (Marcellesi 1989 as cited in Heller 2010). Taken in
the context of Kachru’s World Englishes Paradigm, providing services for English language
learning is no longer limited to countries that have English as their native language (Inner Circle)
but extends to the Outer Circle including the Philippines, Malaysia, and India, among others.
Secondly, the paper argues that the program is a global marketing strategy following
Kelly-Holmes’ (2010) definition of products – or in this case, services with language as the
symbolic product – which are conceived for global consumption. This is validated by the
different materials analyzed in the study including brochures, audiovisual presentation, and other
materials of the MoreFun Campaign as well as the ESL Tour Program memorandum and press
releases.
The paper, then, proceeds to discuss the roles of language(s) in the ESL Tour Program:
as a product, as a tool, and as an index. Language (i.e. English) as the “commodity” or symbolic
product being offered in the ESL Tour program alongside tourist activities is analyzed in the
context of Heller’s Language as a Resource in a Globalized Community” (2010). While in itself,
language is the commodity, interestingly, it also functions as a legitimizing tool strategically
manipulated and deployed in tourist discourses (including the analyzed materials). The program,
as reinforced in these discourses, claims the Philippines a “legit” ESL destination. Likewise, the
program’s Unique Selling Proposition (USP) which asserts quality instruction and fun learning
experience at an affordable cost is also propagated in these media through different modes
including that of linguistic. Lastly, language also indexes the target market of the program; the
language ecology (i.e. available language translations) of websites of the DOT-partner language
schools suggests that Koreans and Japanese are on top of the list.
Noela M. Lodevico-Palma is currently an Instructor at the Nueva Vizcaya State University. A
BA English Studies: Language graduate of this university, her interests include multimodal
discourse analysis, linguistic landscape, and language tourism.
Confidence and WTC of Filipino Adolescents with Articulation Disorders
by Karla Maolen B. Visbal
This study was mainly concerned with the relationship of Articulation to the Level of
Confidence and Willingness to Communicate of Adolescents with Articulation Disorders.
The research involved 30 Adolescents with Articulation Disorders (AAD) within Metro
Manila, six of which were provided by Operation Smile, an international non-profit organization
who help children with cleft lip and palate in obtaining free surgical assistance. In order to fully
discuss the Articulation of Adolescents with Articulation Disorders, the researcher randomly
tested 30 Average Speaking People (ASP) to determine the difference in their Articulation,
Confidence and Willingness to Communicate.
The researcher employed McCroskey’s Personal Report on Communication
Apprehension (PRCA) Test and Willingness to Communicate (WTC) Test in order to determine
the subjects’ Level of Confidence and WTC respectively. The test for the Scale of Articulation
for both AAD and ASP was developed by the researcher, with the aid of Prof. Darlene Echavia
of the College of Education, Department of Special Education in the University of the
Philippines-Diliman and Ms. Samantha Sadural, designer and lead researcher of the Speech and
Phoneme Recognition as Educational Aid for the Deaf children (SPREAD).
Karla “Kalai” Visbal is a graduate student of Speech Communication at the University of the
Philippines-Diliman. Kalai graduated from the University of the Philippines-Baguio with a
Bachelor’s Degree in Communication, majoring in Speech Communication with a minor in
Journalism. Through excessive fieldwork and interaction with children with communication
disorders, she has taken a keen interest in the Speech Sciences and basic speech correction,
leading to her pursuance of studies concerned with the communication of individuals with
Articulation Disorders, particularly Clefts (cleft lip, cleft palate or both). She is currently a
member of the DSCTA faculty of CAL.
PANEL 3
Violent Erasures and the Reconstruction of Memories
Arcellana Reading Room (1st Floor)
Omitted Texts, Overwritten Codes and E-rased Works: A Cutback
Tilde Acuña
The Kids Must Die:
Memory and School Violence in Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk about Kevin
Leif Garinto
Remembering, Forgetting, and Imagining the Vietnam Tragedy:
The Reconstruction of American Personal and National Identities in David Rabe’s Trilogy
Roberta Mari Quiambao
Omitted Texts, Overwritten Codes and E-rased Works: A Cutback
by Tilde Acuña
Three years may be too short a time since my first venture into erasure, but I think it
merits introspection as much has changed in my manner of engagement. In 2011, “eraserase002”
was published in Under the Storm: Anthology of Contemporary Philippine Poetry. Admittedly, I
responded to the call for submissions with drafts that I consider in-progress, since editors Khavn
dela Cruz and Joel Toledo say they look for “wasak” poems.
In 2012, a set with the aforementioned work came out in the erasures anthology but the
words get in the way, assembled by Adam David. I thought I made a naïve mistake by erasing
Brecht, but on hindsight, I re-think and re-consider that the project somewhat puts into practice
his verfremdungseffekt. Only, it does not and I am making excuses for youthful forays I enjoyed.
Kritika Kultura No. 23 includes “Madrid 1884” and “Tondo 1892,” collaborative works
with Dennis Aguinaldo. Preceding the aforesaid sets are entries in a picture dictionary, a larger
work-in-progress with Aguinaldo: “bookworm two,” “flog two” and “workhorse two,”
published in the online journal transit. The “eraserase” set and these recent works differ in
execution, as the latter makes use of webpages as source text and of digitally rendered drawings
as liquid paper (whiteout) or pentel pen (black out).
Finally, a project—building on insights from previous ones—attempts to enact violence
on something I deem violent. In Nihil Vers: ode to deCo, I censor a document that aims to
censor expression and suppress basic rights, in the fashion of industrial band Laibach's strategy
that Zizek calls “over-identification,” which exaggerates dominant ideologies as a means of
exposition.
Thus, my practice of obliterating texts evolved from an ekphrastic, quasi-artistic play; to a
collaborative reflection on layers of meaning-making; and finally to a critical interrogation and
outright mockery of ridiculously repressive policies, censored and pushed to its extremes
through defacement via erasure.
Arbeen Regalado “Tilde” Acuña, an Araling Pilipino graduate student at College of Arts and Letters,
University of the Philippines, Diliman, received his bachelor's degree in Communication Arts (cum laude)
from College of Arts and Sciences at the University of the Philippines in Los Baños, where he served as
Editor-in-Chief of UPLB Perspective. He is an IYAS fellow for Filipino Poetry and Fiction last 2010 and
a KRITIKA fellow for Popular Culture in 2014. His visual and literary works have been published in
Kritika Kultura, High Chair, Bulatlat, Tomas, UP Forum, among others.
The Kids Must Die: Memory and School Violence in Lionel Shriver’s We Need
to Talk about Kevin
by Leif Garinto
This essay will examine the (ongoing) impact of school violence on contemporary
American fiction, particularly Lionel Shriver’s critically acclaimed novel, We Need to Talk about
Kevin. While most critical studies of Shriver’s novel focus primarily on the binary difference
between nature and nurture in raising a child, I am primarily interested in Shriver’s text as a work
of memory, particularly as a flashbulb memory of violence. I propose that We Need to Talk
about Kevin is a memory text that represents school-related violence as a growing national
menace. This essay will also discuss how this flashbulb memory of kids covered in blood running
out of the campus, with looks of extreme terror in their faces has become emblematic of an
organic shrapnel (in the words of Don DeLillo) now embedded in contemporary American
society and ideals.
Despite Shriver admitting in a 2003 interview that her use of a school shooting incident
in her novel served mainly as a “dramatic” plot device to delineate “a need to examine the whole
gamut of possible consequences of having children,” she further states that while “it’s an
extreme case, and it’s meant to be an extreme case … [ultimately] the extreme case is often the
test.” Indeed, We Need to Talk about Kevin is ultimately a meditation on motherhood, but since
its publication in 2003 there has been an increasing number of school-related violence, clearly
operating on the flashbulb memory of the Columbine shootings, that eventually bleeds into
contemporary American society as a continuing cultural trauma. School shootings have become a
test, to use Shriver’s term, on American ideals and innocence.
In this essay I will be using psychologists Roger Brown and James Kulik’s pioneering
essay on flashbulb memory, journalist Dave Cullen’s critically acclaimed nonfiction narrative
Columbine, the official investigation reports of the Columbine and Virginia Tech school
shootings, and sociologist Jeffrey Alexander’s articles on cultural trauma and collective memory
to frame We Need to Talk about Kevin as an unsettling examination of the growing menace of
school violence in post-9/11 United States.
Leif Garinto currently works as a freelance editor after a stint at the University of Santo Tomas
Publishing House as a copy editor and winning two non-consecutive Publisher of the Year
Awards (2011, 2013) from the National Book Development Board as part of the team. He is
currently taking up his Master's degree in Anglo-American Literature at the University of the
Philippines - Diliman, where he received his bachelor's degree in the same area of study. His
research interests include literature after 9/11, Philippine book history, and translation studies.
Remembering, Forgetting, and Imagining the Vietnam Tragedy: The Reconstruction of
American Personal and National Identities in David Rabe’s Trilogy
by Roberta Mari Quiambao
The American War in Vietnam is a topic that has been featured and discussed in various
books, films, and television shows produced in the United States since the 1960s. A considerable
number of plays that deal with the Vietnam War have also been staged, but existing research
regarding its presence on the American stage is relatively limited. To add to the scant research on
Vietnam War drama, this study examines three of David Rabe’s 1970s plays which critics dub as
his Vietnam War trilogy: The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel, Sticks and Bones, and Streamers.
Instead of concentrating on the texts’ antiwar sentiments like many past studies did, this paper
provides an analysis of the three plays in the field of memory work, focusing on the evaluation
and reconstruction of American identity. This is done by delineating how the involvement of the
United States in the war in Vietnam has changed the American psyche and national identity. The
Vietnam War--because of its drastic effects not only on the individual who has served in the war,
but also on those who were left at home--is then regarded as an event that forced Americans to
reevaluate their values as they confronted this particular cultural trauma. It is argued that Rabe,
through his plays, challenged the American identity that is rooted on its manifest destiny to
spread American values to the world with his depiction of America’s failure to uphold back
home the very values it wishes to share with others.
Roberta Quiambao holds a Bachelor’s degree in English Studies and a Certificate in
Professional Education from the University of the Philippines. Having previously taught reading,
language, and English literature to elementary and high school students, she currently works as a
content developer and PR writer while finishing her Master’s degree in English Studies: AngloAmerican Literature. Her research interests include modern and contemporary American drama
and the use of technology in English language teaching.
PANEL 4
Cultural Concepts and the Contexts of Enunciation
CAL Audio-Visual Room (2 Floor)
nd
Isang Testimonya Migranteng Pinay bilang Nars, Nanny, Nanay:
Isang Testimonya sa Dulang Testimonya
Joanna Melody Lerio
The Translation of Honor and the Honor of Translation:
Elizabethan Politeness in Rolando S. Tinio’s Filipino Hamlet
Thomas David F. Chaves
Tracking the Duende: A Theoretical Approach to Achieving Said Affect in
Written Poetry
Jacob Walse-Dominguez
Migranteng Pinay bilang Nars, Nanny, Nanay:
Isang Testimonya sa Dulang Testimonya
by Joanna Melody Lerio
Ang papel na ito ay testimonya ng isang artista sa pag-unawa ng dulang testimonyal batay
sa naranasan nito bilang bahagi ng Philippine premier ng Nanay, isang Dulang Testimonyal na
itinanghal sa iba’t ibang espasyo ng PETA Theater Center noong 2013. Sa produksyon ng Urban
Crawl at panulat nina Geraldine Pratt at Caleb Johnston batay sa salaysay ng mga migranteng
manggagawa sa pamamagitan ng Philippine Women Centre of British Columbia, ang dula ay
nauna nang itinanghal sa Canada noong 2009, sa Germany noong 2009 at sa U.K. bilang textong
binasa at bilang installation noong 2012. Ang pinagdaanang konsensus sa pagsadula nito para sa
tahanang lokasyon ng mga tauhang migranteng Pilipino ay sinisikap maipamalas sa testimonyang
ito sa balangkas ng isang artistang pumaloob sa proseso ng pananaliksik, kolaborasyon at
palitang-kultura. Sa partikular, laman ng testimonya ang sumusunod: (1) ang mga naging
konsiderasyon sa transportasyon ng dula sa Pilipinas; (2) ang naging palitan sa pag-aaral ng
proyekto at pagsasalin sa aktuwal na takbo ng rehearsal katuwang ng mga Filipino at Canadian na
mananaliksik, direktor, artista at istap; (3) ang mga tagpo maging ang negosasyon sa pagitan ng
artista at manunood sa espasyong malapitan sa aktuwal na pagtatanghal; (4) ang nabuksang
diyalogo hinggil sa migrasyon kaugnay ng polisiyang Labor-Export ng Pilipinas at ng Live-in
Caregiver Program ng Canada; at (5) ang mga mahahalaw ng artista sa produksyon. Sa kabuuan,
ang artista ay tumatayong testigo sa mga katanungan at aral hinggil sa pagtatanghal at pagimprobisa ng katotohanan sa loob ng proseso ng pagsaentablado ng isang dulang may katangiang
testimonyal at pangunahing verbatim, isang proyektong pansining na transnasyunal at dulang
iniluwal ng pananaliksik sa usapin ng trabaho at ng penomenon ng pangingibambayan ng mga
Pilipino.
Joanna Melody Lerio is pursuing her MA in Theater Arts at the University of the Philippines
Diliman. A cultural worker, freelance theater artist and contributor of Pinoyweekly.org, she is
also a program monitor-evaluator of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts Committee on Dramatic Arts. She has performed with SINAGBAYAN, Dulaang UP,
Tanghalang Ateneo, PETA Dance Theater Network and Urban Crawl Canada. As a volunteer,
she facilitates Advocacy/Campaign-Based Theater Workshops for various organizations.
The Translation of Honor and the Honor of Translation:
Elizabethan Politeness in Rolando S. Tinio’s Filipino Hamlet
by Thomas David F. Chaves
Following Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness, I explore the interventions
employed by Rolando S. Tinio, in his 1991 translation of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”, Ang Trahedya
ni Hamlet: Prinsipe ng Dinamarka. Extending Brown and Gilman’s analysis of politeness
between and among Shakespeare characters, I identify some of the actual and potential problems
in translation and offer solutions to address them. In particular, I look at how deference is
expressed in Elizabethan English with regards to address (titles, names, and pronouns) and the
utterance of indirect requests and implied commands that threaten face. Because Elizabethan
society cultivated norms of behavior around punctilious rules of cultural and linguistic courtesy,
any translation must therefore respect the intricacies and pragmatic intent of Shakespeare’s work.
Such cases as the you/thou distinction and the fine grades of address signified specific social
roles and processes. How does Tinio accommodate these particulars? The answer provides some
evidence with regard to the flexibility and constraints in the intercultural transfer of translation.
Why does Tinio omit the po/ho and kayo/ikaw distinctions altogether, while at the same time
render “pray/prithee” as utangnaloob? It is interesting to note that since Tinio’s translation of
Hamlet is a functional one and that contemporary Filipino employs distinct strategies of
linguistic politeness that differ from Elizabethan English, many of Tinio’s strategies succeed
rather well.
Thomas David Chaves is assistant professor of the Department of English and Comparative
Literature at the University of the Philippines in Diliman. He is completing an MA in Creative
Writing and has received several national awards for his short stories. His other MA is in Medical
Sociology, which he obtained from Mahidol University (Thailand). He has taught in several
Asian countries.
Tracking the Duende: A Theoretical Approach to Achieving Said Affect in
Written Poetry
by Jacob Walse-Dominguez
Frederico Garcia-Lorca's duende is an elusive concept that, according to him, can only be
felt, is not concretely tangible and can only be properly described as a feeling one gets when
faced with this kind of sublimity in music. The paper explores this concept of duende, tying it
closely to that awe-inspiring effect that well-executed art has on its audience, be it through music,
visual art, dance or performance and most especially the written word—poetry.
The study draws from different texts such as Jeanette Winterson's work, among others,
attempting to elucidate a road-map of sorts to understand where this duende comes from.
Additionally touching on the technical aspect of craft—how one seeking to hone their personal
craft of poetry can plot out the source of this force and come to a position where the technicality
of craft and the intuitive-based inspiration of emotions may possibly meld together, bringing
light to how one may achieve this intended effect in poetry.
Jacob Walse-Dominguez is a young poet who graduated with a degree of AB-Journalism from
the University of Santo Tomas, spent a short time as a financial news reporter, as a literature
teacher at the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde, as well as a semi-monastic in an academic
Buddhist monastery called Fo Guang Shan in Taiwan. He is currently taking his MA in Creative
Writing at the University of the Philippines-Diliman.
PANEL 5
Popular Genres and Discursive Contexts
Arcellana Reading Room (1 Floor)
st
The Language of Love: A Micro-Macro Analysis of Code Switching in English in Selected
Filipino Romance Novels
Jocelyn A. S. Navera
The Crux of the Game: Formal and Genre Tropes, and Interpretative Schemes
Francis Paolo M. Quina
The Paradox of Fanfiction as a Democratic Discursive Practice:
The Case of Anime Fanfiction Writing
Ivy J. Antonio
The Language of Love: A Micro-Macro Analysis of Code Switching in English in
Selected Filipino Romance Novels
by Jocelyn A. S. Navera
This study primarily aims to determine the motivations for code switching in English in
the lovers' dialogue of ten (10) Filipino romance novels. It also wants to see if network, or the
characters' socio-economic backgrounds and histories, would affect these motivations. Lastly,
the study attempts to find out which language, Filipino or English, is the preferred code for
expressions of love. The data is gathered from 10 Precious Hearts Novels by two bestselling
authors: Camilla and Sonia Francesca. To analyze the data, a new approach that combined the
micro and the macro analyses is used. For the micro-analysis, Peter Auer's Sequential Approach
was applied, while Li Wei's Network concept was employed to supplement this and represent the
macro-analysis. The code switching occurrences, together with relevant information, are then
isolated and put in tables. Each novel has a Character Profile table, which includes information
regarding the characters' backgrounds, and a Code Switches table, which lists all the English
code switches in the novels.
The analysis of data produced the following answers: first, there are a good number of
motivations for code switching in the selected novels; however, the most observable is its
capacity to highlight important parts of utterances that carry emotion, crucial revelations, and
romantic content, among others. Code switching is not limited to specific settings or the
expression of specific parts of speech or speech acts; rather it is employed as a contextualization
cue that foregrounds what is important in a given interaction. As for network, its influence is not
apparent in how code switching is used in the exchanges. What is noticeable is its influence in
how much code switching is done, with the more well-off characters generally code switching
more than their poorer counterparts. Lastly, although English seem to be used for a good
number of instances that deal with the expression or confession of love, it cannot be said that it
is the “preferred” language for it because, ultimately, it is the conversational context which
determines if code switching will enhance the statements that need to be foregrounded. It does
not necessarily mean, then, that the characters choose English because it expresses ardor better
than Filipino, but because the particular exchange calls for a linguistic resource that has the
ability to underscore the passionate utterances.
Jocelyn A. S. Navera got her bachelor's and master's degrees in English Studies-Language from
UP Diliman. During her time as a student, she became president of UP Lingua Franca, the
official organization of English majors. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Applied Linguistics at
De La Salle University-Manila.
The Crux of the Game: Formal and Genre Tropes, and Interpretative Schemes
by Francis Paolo M. Quina
Ludwig Wittgenstein’s concept of the “language game” proposes that linguistic meanings
are not fixed, but rather negotiated between the participants of the game: be it at the macro-level
of a language such as English, or at the micro-level of professional or social groups. If one
applies the notion of the “language game” to a literary work—which is a specialized linguistic
construct—the author and the reader[s] becomes players of a brief language game. But how does
the author and reader[s] negotiate the meaning of a literary text? Where do these players meet to
negotiate this meaning?
This presentation proposes that the author and the reader[s] of a literary work negotiate
meaning through an “interpretative scheme” that is present in the literary work. This
“interpretative scheme” is based on formal and genre tropes of literature. For example, the
detective novel’s “interpretative scheme” is dictated not only by the form and the demands of
the novel, but of the genre the work falls under.
In a sense, the language game of literature is dependent on which formal or genre tropes
are maintained, which ones are bent, and which ones are broken completely. And all of these are
dependent on three things: the author’s craft, the reader’s understanding and willingness to be
complicit towards meaning-making, and the interpretative scheme itself. Should one of these
falter or fail, the text can be misread, misinterpreted, and worst of all, abandoned. As such, this
presentation will focus on the crux of the game: the interpretative scheme itself, how the
negotiation of meaning actually happens between the author and the reader[s].
Francis Paolo Quina teaches at the Department of English and Comparative Literature in UP
Diliman, where he is also an MA Creative Writing student. He is con-currently the deputy
director of the UP Institute of Creative Writing.
The Paradox of Fanfiction as a Democratic Discursive Practice: The Case of
Anime Fanfiction Writing
by Ivy J. Antonio
This paper attempts to expand the relatively unknown conversation about fan fiction
studies in the Philippines through characterizing the properties of fan fiction as a genre. It
specifically seeks to uncover the prevailing convention on the writing of selected anime fan
fiction stories with particular attention to how it shows translocality and heteroglossia, how these
concepts translate into a specific discourse community of fan fiction writers, and the way these
features encode the broader social and ideological conditions of the practice. A corpus of fifteen
(15) stories were identified and analyzed through content analysis. After examining the texts, the
paper concludes that the global nature of fan fiction necessitates that the participants in this
global space use the different linguistic, stylistic, and discursive resources available to them in
order to craft end-products which explore their desired outcome of the source material and at
the same time position their story in the fan community as an informed fan fiction. However,
even if fan fiction is a means of expression and reappropriation of writers of the source material,
the very product itself is still very much determined by the rules created and maintained by the
fan fiction writer’s discourse community. As such, fan fiction as an expression of absolute
freedom, though seemingly liberating at first glance, is merely a fiction.
Ivy J. Antonio is currently an English teacher in the High School department of La Salle Green
Hills, Mandaluyong City. She is a graduate of Bachelor of Secondary Education, major in
English, minor in Social Studies - cum laude, from the College of Education, University of the
Philippines - Diliman, batch 2010 and has been in the teaching profession ever since she
graduated.
PANEL 6
Narrative Forms and Socio-Cultural Histories
CAL Audio-Visual Room (2 Floor)
nd
The Fragmented Social History of Short Film Animation,
from Nonoy Marcelo’s Tadhana to the decline of film
Molinia Anne T. Velasco
In Sickness and in Wealth: The Politicization and Polarization of French Homosexuality
Richard Karl Deang
On Iwan Simatupang’s The Pilgrim: Novel, Narrative, and the Journey Beyond
Maria Amparo N. Warren
The Fragmented Social History of Short Film Animation, from Nonoy Marcelo’s
Tadhana to the decline of film
by Molinia Anne T. Velasco
Animation, just like other forms of art, has been used for the dissemination of the
political ideas, expression of protest against social issues and as an artistic expression, yet remains
little discussed in film and art history as compared to other visual art forms. Thus, the ongoing
study aims to address a gap in the history of visual art and film by proposing a social history of
animation that acknowledges the animation industry in the Philippines, the art practices and
specifically, short film animation works by Filipino animators. The study will first establish the
history of animation in a timeline of events based on a typical linear history model based on the
labor processes, technological conditions, institutions and production and distribution of self
made “original content” animation in the Philippines based on existing literature on animation.
Later on, the study will challenge this model by introducing timelines or elements that are
broken, change in direction, branching out and subjected to derivations.
After discussing the context of animation in the Philippines the study will then focus on
the life histories select Filipino animators, specifically Roxlee, Nelson Caliguia Sr., Ellen Ramos
and Joey Agbayani; beginning from their educational background, their training in animation, the
methods use in animation, and then the animated art forms themselves in relation to the broader
history of the processes, institutions that train and produce animation. The study will be
specifically discussing techniques and strategies these animators employ in their short films; not
just by being a member of an animation production crew but as creators of their own work and
how the lives of these animators have also overlapped, intersected and worked paralleled with
each other. The reasons behind why self made, short film animation in the Philippines is
unfamiliar to the public because of its form and modes of distribution will also be analyzed in
the study. Acquisition of these data will be based on the informal, undisclosed, omitted and
overlooked means that are and should be part of creating history. The study regards that
animation history is a fragmented, complex, overlapping narrative, and is and will be
continuously be written and rewritten.
Molinia Anne T. Velasco is a graduate student of the Arts Studies Department. She is also a
full-time faculty of the Multimedia Arts Program of De La Salle College of Saint Benilde
specializing in Interactive Graphic Design and Development for Multimedia and
Conceptualization and Research for Multimedia.
In Sickness and in Wealth: The Politicization and Polarization of French
Homosexuality
by Richard Karl Deang
The cultural history of homosexuality in contemporary France is characterized by three
overlapping phases of politicization. The first two of these phases--the celebration of the
Genetian pariah of the postwar years and the gay liberation movement of the 1970s--are
represented by the voices of the two protagonists of Dominique Fernandez’s La Gloire du paria
(1987). The third phase is marked by the explosion of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and the
1990s, to which each of the two characters provides a unique response. Through a genealogical
analysis of Fernandez's novel, I aim to examine how this phase of French gay cultural history, in
conjunction with the most recent polarizing debates on same–sex marriage at the turn of the
century, reveals the centrality of difference in French gay politics. This sense of difference, which
is seen not only in terms of the traditional gay–straight dichotomy but also in terms of the
bifurcation of the supposed gay community into neoliberalist and sexual radicalist camps,
exposes the ineluctable fragmentation of French identity, contrary to the universalist claims of
French republican ideology.
Richard Karl Deang is Assistant Professor of French at the Department of European
Languages, University of the Philippines Diliman. He studied French literature at the University
of Paris Sorbonne and graduated from the MA Comparative Literature program of the College
of Arts and Letters, University of the Philippines Diliman. His paper for the colloquium is taken
from his thesis, “Queering the Années sida: The Minority Discourse of French AIDS Writing,
1983–1996.”
On Iwan Simatupang’s The Pilgrim: Novel, Narrative, and the Journey Beyond
by Maria Amparo N. Warren
This paper is a critical reading of Indonesian author Iwan Simatupang’s novel The
Pilgrim (orig. Ziarah), in the context of the development of the Indonesian modern novel as
genre. The paper begins with a short review of the history of Indonesian literature, from the
older forms to the newer forms brought by the change in the historical, social, and political
landscape of the country after the period of Dutch colonization and European influence.
Second, it locates author Iwan Simatupang’s place in the Indonesian literary tradition, noting the
influences and major decisions that characterize his contribution to the novel as genre: his
participation in the upheaval of Indonesia’s politics, and his drawing upon Western philosophers
such as Albert Camus in discovering existentialist and absurdist thought. Next, it delves into a
close reading of The Pilgrim through the eyes of its main protagonists, the painter and the
overseer. What follows is a comparison of the narrative traditions preceding the style of
storytelling, versus the storytelling process through the mode of absurdist fiction in a time-less,
unpredictable setting; this is to gauge the accessibility of the novel and its success in adapting to a
literary movement associated with Western tradition, especially in the goals of fiction to uncover
crucial insight on human reality. Lastly, the paper traces the insights of the novel to the
emergence of a unique literary and philosophical sensibility in the Indonesian identity from the
1960s and beyond, after a journey through a deconstructed and recreated literary world. The
paper thus aims to do the following: (1) locate the novel in a dynamic Indonesian literary
tradition, and 2) argue the merits of the text in its mode of storytelling and its potential to yield
truly authentic revelation about human selfhood, culture, and an ever-changing life. Ultimately,
the paper discusses the concerns of the Indonesian novel as genre through a brief historical
study of the country’s traditions and Simatupang’s The Pilgrim, concluding with the novel’s
potential in using its storytelling devices to uncover a human truth that is never static, but
constantly negotiated in language, literature, and philosophy.
Maria Amparo Warren is part of the Creative Writing MA Program of the Department of
English and Comparative Literature, studying fiction. She is a copy-editor in the University of
the Philippines Press, and has done freelance writing, editing, and communication consultancy
with the public and non-government sector. Her research interests include Philippine and Asian
literature and different perspectives in cultural studies.
CAL GRADUATE COLLOQUIUM 2014 COMMITTEE
Prof. Ana Micaela Chua
Prof. Elvin Ebreo
Prof. Pauline Hernando
Ms. Louise Anne D. Marcelino
Ms. Maria Portia Placino
Ms. Grace Saqueton
Prof. Elena R. Mirano, Ph.D., Dean, College of Arts and Letters
Prof. Maria Milagros C. Laurel, Ph.D., Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
Prof. Odine Maria M. De Guzman, Ph.D., Graduate Studies Coordinator 2013-2014
Prof. Norma A. Respicio, Ph.D., Current Graduate Studies Coordinator
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Sentro ng Wikang Filipino
Art Studies Foundation
Prof. Melanie Leaño
UP Concert Chorus
Graduate Students Office Staff and Student Assistants
Erika Mariano-Jacinto
Munting Media Group
All Greek Trading
Roberto Barcelo, Joanne Mabuloc, and Vicente Zamora
CAL Graduate Studies Office
Bulwagang Rizal (Faculty Center), University of the Philippines
Diliman 1101 Quezon City
+632981-85-00 loc. 2107
CAL Graduate Colloquium 2014
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