ASAN 620: Philippine Social and Intellectual History
CRN 89008, Spring 2012
Taught By: Prof. Resil Mojares, Andrews Chair Visiting Professor, & Prof. Vina Lanzona, History and Asian Studies
When: Thursdays, 3-5:30pm
Location: Moore 204

The Philippines has a unique history. Beginning from the 16th century, it became part of the Spanish empire in the Asia/Pacific, a colonial arrangement that lasted for more than 300 years. Towards the end of the 19th century, a series of revolutionary upheavals led to the establishment and then decline of the new Philippine republic. The end of the Philippine-American War paved the way for 50 years of “tutelary” colonialism under the Americans. The promise of independence, disrupted by the Japanese occupation, was finally achieved in 1946 only to be challenged by political turmoil and groups contesting to define the new nation. The postwar period was marked by rebellions, revolutions, and military dictatorships. All these elements constitute the nationalist narrative that traces the emergence of a unified Philippine nation and identity.
Much of Philippine history and historiography focus on this developmental trajectory and centralizing narrative where political developments are prioritized and its capital Manila always appears at the center. But much of the historical movements in the Philippines occur outside of politics and of Manila. Since the 1980s, Philippine scholars working inside and outside the Philippines have been questioning the emphasis on the military and the political, propagating the social history of the archipelago. Simultaneously, new and established scholars, working in fields such as religion, languages, and literatures, defined the cultural and intellectual history of the Philippines. The rise of social, cultural and intellectual history led to new ways of inquiry, in effect redefining the field of Philippine studies.
This course will look at seminal and new works in Philippine social, cultural and intellectual history. By focusing on writings that challenge the conventional boundaries of the historical discipline, this course interrogates issues such as culture and colonialism, science and education, nationalism, race, class, morality and gender as well as trace the intellectual movements in Philippine studies. Moreover, students in this course will have an opportunity to read and discuss primary sources and illustrative texts produced by Filipinos. Students will gain an understanding of the developments and uses of Philippine social and intellectual history through an understanding of both general and particular historical and historiographical trends, discussion of critical issues in intellectual production, and analysis of texts and books in shaping popular knowledge and the national scholarship on the Philippines. This exploration would hopefully present not a unified vision of Philippine history but one that’s nuanced, complex, always intriguing and constantly changing.


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Course Code: CRN 89008
For more information, please contact The Center for Philippine Studies at cpsdir@hawaii.edu.
Resil B. Mojares has a doctorate in literature from the University of the Philippines and is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of San Carlos in Cebu City, Philippines. His interests range through various topics in Philippine social and cultural history, and his books have consistently been honored in the National Book Awards of the Manila Critics Circle and the National Book Development of the Philippines. He has served as visiting fellow at Kyoto University, the National University of Singapore, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and University of California-Los Angeles.
Vina A. Lanzona is an associate professor in the Department of History, and currently the Director of the Center for Philippine Studies, University of Hawaii at Manoa. Her first book Amazons of the Huk Rebellion: Gender, Sex and Revolution in the Philippines (2009) won the Kenneth Baldridge Prize as the Best History Book in Hawaii (2008-2011) and demonstrate her twin passions for studying revolutions and women in political change. Her interests include Philippine social history, revolutions and collective action, women, gender and sexuality and comparative colonialisms.