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

AC Faculty Salon: New Faculty Lectures 2024 | Faculty Salon Series

Details
The UP Asian Center will hold a Faculty Salon Series featuring Lectures from New Asian Center Faculty on 30 September 2024, 10:00 AM, PST (GMT+8) and 9 October 2024, 2:00 PM, PST (GMT+8), at the Seminar Room, UP Asian Center, University of the Philippines Diliman (ONSITE). The event is free and open to the public. Online pre-registration is recommended due to limited seating.

09 OCTOBER 2024, 2 PM   |   Presentations and Speakers

From New to Newer Model: Philippine Domestic Politics and Evolving Conflict Management with China in the South China Sea

Not long after the formation of a grand political alliance between the Duterte and Marcos clans for the 2022 Philippine national elections, the so-called “UniTeam” Alliance, seemingly built on house of cards, has imploded and is reshaping the Philippines’ domestic politics and foreign policy landscape. From projecting a united front during the campaign trail, war of words is the new normal between the two camps with both dealing all possible cards and accumulating political ammunition to use against each other—locally and internationally. Notably, this has made China a crucial domestic flashpoint between the warring camps. As a result of the disunity and fallout, the former Duterte Administration’s approach to China has been brought into spotlight, particularly its controversial “Gentleman’s Agreement” with China on Second Thomas Shoal, which has now been replaced by a “Provisional Agreement” with China on the same by the Marcos Jr. Administration. While both arrangements share the same imperative of seeking peace and stability with China due to power asymmetry, key domestic variables such as bully pulpit, political power, and popularity make public appreciation of them highly nuanced. 
AARON JED RABENA, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Asian Center, University of the Philippines Diliman
Aaron Jed Rabena, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor at the Asian Center, University of the Philippines Diliman and a Visiting Scholar at the Taiwan Center for Security Studies (TCSS), National Chengchi University (NCCU) in Taipei. He had served as a Non-Resident Fellow at the Pacific Forum in Hawaii and a Visiting Fellow at the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS), China Foreign Affairs University (CFAU) and ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. He is also a Pacific Forum Young Leaders and an alumnus of the East-West Center (EWC), the US State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP), and the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (DKI-APCSS). Jed obtained his Ph.D. in International Relations from Shandong University in China and has an Executive Education in Risk Management from the Asian Institute of Management (AIM). His areas of interest include Strategic Studies, Greater East Asian Geopolitics and Multilateral Politics, Political Risk, Maritime Security, and Chinese Politics and Foreign Policy.

30 SEPTEMBER 2024, 10 AM   |   Presentations and Speakers

The Othered Self: Contextualizing Representations of the Other

The years leading to the Showa period were a dynamic time for Japan with the struggles of modernization during the Meiji period, the brief respite of democratization during the Taisho period and the eventual path to militarization of the Showa period. The Japanese nation was struggling with identity formation of nationals as the territories expanded or contracted due to the imperial or colonial policies of the state. Intellectuals were publicly discussing theories on how to define what it meant to be “Japanese” and at the forefront of this were popular media such as magazines. Publishers were engaging in development of a literate market starting from Meiji education policies of access to all, by defining gender roles through the publication of magazines identified for men and women. The same publications also defined childhood by circulating age-specific media. However, such media were still restricted by socio-political constraints which attracted customers in consuming their products.
This seminar focuses on the boys’ magazine Shonen Club as it was the most influential children’s magazine during the Showa period, monopolizing 75% of the market. Within the context of pre-war, and post-war period, the research looks at how the “other” was represented through visual expression, particularly in manga, to understand how the discussions of theories on identity were translated and re-communicated by artists through their work to their readership. Through this exposition, the study enables understanding of the shifting identity construction of the Japanese.
KARL IAN CHENG CHUA, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Asian Center, UP Diliman
Karl Ian Cheng Chua, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor at the Asian Center, University of the Philippines Diliman. He served a Professorial Lecturer at the UP Asian Center. He has recently completed his posting as a visiting professor at the Graduate School of Social Sciences, Hitotsubashi University. He serves on the editorial board of East Asian Journal of Popular Culture,Comics Studies: Aesthetics, Histories, and Practices and Social Science Diliman. 

Biswal na Literaturang Komiks noong Panahon ng Digmaan: Ang Kenkoy Komiks sa Panahon ng Pananakop ng Japan sa Pilipinas

The socio-economic impacts of the Second World War on ordinary individuals as presented in literature have yet to be deeply studied, much less analyzed. It is within such circumstances that I analyze in this paper the contents of the Kenkoy comic strip as it appeared during the entire war while the Philippines was directly under Japanese rule and its printing press was under repressive military and civilian control.
The comic strip first appeared in the widely popular magazine Liwayway in 11 January 1929. The magazine halted its publication when the war broke out but returned to normal operations by the end of May 1942 or soon after the end of hostilities in Corregidor and Bataan. With the Japanese Imperial Army taking over the operations of the magazine via the Manila Shimbunsha publishing firm, the much beloved Liwayway magazine once again brought entertainment to its vast Filipino readership throughout the occupation. Published weekly, Liwayway, which continues to be published up to the present day, was not only a source of entertainment but of news and public affairs. In fact, it was among the very few sources of information for the general local population during the war. It has also been where some of the most important literary works and artists were published. It is for this reason, Liwayway having been the source of both news and entertainment—fact and fiction, truth and otherwise—that the Kenkoy comic strip as a visual and literary medium becomes highly significant, not to mention its existence during one of the most trying times of the country.
There have been several studies about Filipino comic strips, but there are only a handful about Kenkoy and almost none about it during the Second World War. The very few studies about Kenkoy only discuss its role as the pioneer comic strip in the country. I think the comic strip, especially its continued publication during the war, is an integral element to wartime Philippine historiography.
GONZALO CAMPOAMOR, Ph.D.
Professor, Asian Center, University of the Philippines Diliman
Gonzalo Campoamor, Ph.D. is a Professor at the Asian Center, UP Diliman. He previously served as an Associate professor at the UP Department of Filipino and Philippine Literature . He completed his MA in Filipino in UP Diliman, and his MA and PhD in History at the Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, where he was a Monbukagakusho (Japanese Government) scholar. Dr. Campoamor is also served as editor for several journals including Humanities Diliman, Science Diliman, and Social Science Diliman. He has several critical works that have been published in several journals including “Japanese Wartime Intellectuals: The Case of Miki Kiyoshi during the Japanese Occupation in the Philippines” (Asian Studies: Journal of Critical Perspectives in Asia, 2016), “Midya at Pasismo” (Media at Lipunan, 2014), and “Elias and the Rizalian Middle Class Imagination of Bonifacio and Revolution” (Salita ng Sandata: Bonifacio’s Legacies to the People’s Struggles, 2013). Dr. Campoamor has been a recipient of numerous awards, including the Sumitomo Foundation 2014 Grant for Japan-Related Research Projects, Japan Student Services Organization Follow-up Research fellowship (2013), and several UP Centennial Faculty Grants.
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The Asian Center, University of the Philippines Diliman offers M.A. degrees in Asian Studies with four fields of specialization: Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and West Asia. The UP Asian Center also has an M.A. program in Philippine Studies that allows students to major in Philippine society and culture, Philippine foreign relations, or Philippine development studies. It also offers a Ph.D. program in Philippine Studies in conjunction with the College of Arts and Letters and the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy. For an overview of these graduate programs, click here. As an area studies institution, the Asian Center also publishes Asian Studies: Journal of Critical Perspectives on Asia, the latest issue of which can be downloaded at the journal's website.