Gina Apostol, Novelist and Essayist With introduction by Benedict Anderson, Aaron L. Binenkorb Professor Emeritus of International Studies, Government, and Asian Studies

I will investigate the Filipino-American war as material for narrative. I will combine a discussion of historical documents, in particular the stereo cards of the war but also online government documents and other sources, with the following concerns: novel writing and nation construction. In my reading of the documents for my work, what is striking is that the documents perform a dual function: for me, as a novelist, they create avenues for memory and narrative; but for the nation, in 1901, these documents in fact construct the country—they

create the nation at the same time as they erase the revolution. In what lies revolution or change or transformation therefore? What productive functions does an examination of the documents recover? Researching documents of the Filipino-American war has the effect of “constructing” the country in the way Americans conceived it, since the extant materials consist mostly of government documents from the American era and few primary sources from Filipino revolutionaries remain. The novelist thus finds herself in an uphill battle, as the issue of the double in the text, the split Filipino, comes to dominate language and consciousness. Yet it is by ren-dering this gap—the Filipino in the text—that the writer is able to forge a more potently visible and challenging reading, over a long historical durée, of transnational problematics of race, cultural imperialism, and migration.

author photo credit: Margarita Corporan

UNIVERSITY LECTURE The Fil ipino-American War and the Writing of a Novel:

Ref lect ions on History and the Art of Fict ion

Tuesday, October 27, 2015, 4:30PMKaufmann Auditorium, Goldwin Smith HallFree and Open to the Public, Organized by Asian Studies

With Cosponsorship from The Society for the Humanities, Southeast Asia Program, The Institute of Comparative Modernities, and Performing and Media Arts