Wherever I am, the world comes after me.
It offers me its busyness. It does not believe that I do not want it.
Now I understand why the old poets of China went so far
and high into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.
"The Old Poets of China" by Mary Oliver

On Masculinity and Media, Contemporary Philippine Art: Two New Books by Dr. Reuben Ramas Cañete

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Two books by Dr. Reuben Ramas Cañete, Associate Professor at the Asian Center, were launched over the last two weeks. One compiles his various essays on masculinity and the media in the Philippines, and the other explores the nature of contemporary Philippine art.

In Masculinity, Media, and Their Publics in the Philippines: Selected Essays, Dr. Cañete initiates “a sustained critique of the forms by which masculinity is imagined, intuited, and instrumentalized in the contemporary postcolonial space of the Philippines. He analyzes and reflects on a “political economy of visual culture,” exploring the “relationships of power between individuals, subgroups, and classes” and how “visuality” encodes these relations.

The chapters in the book cover: male sexual commodification in post-EDSA Philippine erotic cinema; Philippine pornography; Bench billboards; male-oriented consumerism; Manny Pacquiao and the postmodern Pinoy; and the Oblation. Launched on 5 September 2014, Masculinity, Media, and Their Publics in the Philippines is published by the University of the Philippine Press.

One chapter in the book, “Selling Manliness: The Supermall and Male-Oriented Consumerism in Selected Philippine Clothing Stores,” appears in Tagalog translation in Communication and Media Theories, also released last 5 September by UP Press. For further inquiries, please contact the University of the Philippines Press at 926.6642. Visit the website at http://uppress.com.ph/.

Photo: Dr. Reuben Ramas Cañete during the launch of his book on 5 September 2014. Courtesy of the University of the Philippines Press (Facebook page).

Late August saw the release of Dr. Cañete’s Erehwon Arts 2013-2014, a book that surveys the works of contemporary Philippine art that have been exhibited at the Erehwon Center for the Arts in Quezon City. In the book, Dr. Cañete discusses the raison d’etre of the Center, citing its “transformational agenda” of “[creating] a new community of artists” that have a “questioning or critical mindset to....enact artworks, exhibitions, and collective actions that change the way things are thought of and done in the Philippine art world.”

Dr. Cañete provides an overview of the workings of the Philippine art scene and offers thoughtful reflections on Philippine contemporary art. Lastly, he discusses various art works from three major exhibits at the Erehwon Center for the Arts. The book was launched as part of Erehwon Fiesta II that began on 30 August. And it will be relaunched at the 2014 National Art Fair at SM Megamall on 28 September. For more information, please contact 294.5286 or 218.2618 or visit their website at www.erehwonartcenter.com.

Photo: Book cover of Erehwon Arts 2013-2014.