358. The Philippines in the World: Ties and Tensions in Philippine History and Cultures

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel

Abstract

This panel explores how Philippine political and cultural moments have been characterized by tensions and ties that are intensely local, but also far-flung and global. It looks at political, spiritual, or cultural voices--voices of dissent, challenge, or apostasy--and how they occupy location as they challenge existing institutions. The papers also explore how different media--letters, newspapers, printed texts, photographs--are spaces in which these voices emerge and circulate. Moving chronologically from past to present, Justiniano treats the political underworld of late nineteenth-century Manila and its ties beyond, in which state agents pursued unknown enemies and in which secret societies organized, as incubating the 1896 Katipunan-led revolution. Adrian Hermann looks at how the early independent Catholic church (IFI) in the Philippines, while breaking with Roman Catholicism, might have been more invested in embracing what it held to be important modern knowledge than it was in its dissent from Rome. De la Cruz explores religious apostasy as dissent via a manuscript on Philippine Spiritism written by a Spanish Augustinian in the early the twentieth century. Manzanilla treats the work of contemporary photographer, and Hong Kong-based Filipina domestic helper, Xyza Cruz Bacani, who engages in and challenges artistic and political conventions, treating themes of exploitation, authority and authenticity, exclusion and belonging. The panel collects papers from different disciplines and historical moments to explore how movement across scales and borders, both physical movement but also affective, political, or spiritual ties, can strengthen challenges rooted in place.

Area of Study

• Southeast

Session Organizer

• Deirdre de la Cruz, University of Michigan

Chair

• Deirdre de la Cruz, University of Michigan

Individual Presentations

• Dissent, Repression and Revolution: Descent into Manila’s "Dark Labyrinth," 1895-1898 - Maureen S. Justiniano, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA)

• Overtaking Catholicism: The “Iglesia Filipina Independiente” and the Quest for Religious Modernity in Early-Twentieth-Century Philippines - Adrian Hermann, University of Bonn

• The Double Apostasy of Salvador Pons: Spiritism and Catholicism in Early-Twentieth-Century Philippines - Deirdre de la Cruz, University of Michigan

• Visual Voice: The Migrant Photography of Xyza Cruz Bacani - JPaul S. Manzanilla, National University of Singapore

Discussant

• Megan C. Thomas, University of California, Santa Cruz