The UP Asian Center, in collaboration with the Ateneo de Manila University, TriCollege Ph.D. Philippine Studies Program, and the UP Department of History will host the onsite book launch of Jose Rizal, Nationhood, and the Anticolonial Imagination by Dr. Filomeno V. Aguilar Jr. on 15 September 2025, 3 PM (GMT+8), at the ASEAN and Japan Halls, Asian Center, UP Diliman. The event is open to the public. Attendees are encouraged to register online.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Did the Philippines exist since time immemorial? The positive response to this question of official and popular nationalisms is indicative of problematic assumptions that undergird Philippine nationalism. Contrary to primordialism, this book revisits the historical construction of Filipino nationhood in the late nineteenth century. The book focuses on four key issues in ideating the nation—territory, people, history, and emotions. It probes the question of how and why José Rizal and his fellow ilustrados conceptualized a nation with an unfamiliar yet delineated territory, identified an imagined emotional community, pinpointed a category of inhabitants of these islands as their ancestors with a respectable civilization, and situated the territory and the people in a linear timeframe that stretched back to the ancient past. In answering this complex question, the eight chapters of the book overturn common ideas about facets of Philippine history to reveal their complexity.
José Rizal, Nationhood, and the Anticolonial Imagination by Dr Filomeno V Aguilar Jr is published by the Ateneo de Manila University Press. The book retails at PHP 695 and is available at the Ateneo University Press Bookshop in Bellarmine Hall, and the Press’s official Lazada and Shopee stores. Read more about the book: [Hot Off the Press] José Rizal, Nationhood, and the Anticolonial Imagination | Features | Ateneo de Manila University
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
FILOMENO V. AGUILAR Jr., Ph.D.
Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU)
Dr. Filomeno “Jun” Aguilar, Jr. is a Professor of History and currently the Assistant Vice President for Research, Creative Work, and Innovation at the Ateneo de Manila University. He was conferred the Grant Goodman Prize in Philippine Historical Studies by the Association for Asian Studies in March 2025. His research interests encompass the history of nationalism, global migrations, political culture, citizenship, colonial sugar production, rice cultivation, and peripheral histories. He was Chief Editor of Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints for eighteen years from 2003 to 2021. Prior to repatriating to the Philippines in 2003, he taught at the National University of Singapore and James Cook University in Queensland, Australia.
His most recent book is José Rizal, Nationhood, and the Anticolonial Imagination (Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2025). His other publications include Peripheries: Histories of Anti-marginality (Ateneo de Naga University Press, 2018), a finalist in the National Book Awards in 2019, and Clash of Spirits: The History of Power and Sugar Planter Hegemony on a Visayan Island (University of Hawai‘i Press and Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1998), based on his doctoral dissertation that was awarded the 1992 Lauriston Sharp Prize by the Southeast Asia Program at Cornell University.
ABOUT THE REACTORS
NOEL CHRISTIAN A. MORATILLA, Ph.D.
Dean and Associate Professor, UP Asian Center
Dr. Noel Christian A. Moratilla is the Dean and an Associate Professor at the Asian Center, University of the Philippines Diliman. He earned his Ph.D. in Philippine Studies in 2015, after completing an MA in Education from the same university. Before he was appointed Dean, he served as the Deputy Director of the UP System Office of International Linkages. He is an advocate for the rights of Filipino migrant workers and promotes the alignment of internationalization initiatives with national priorities. Dr. Moratilla's academic interests lie in resistance literature, Marxist and postcolonial theory, testimonial narratives, and diaspora studies.
RHODALYN C. WANI-OBIAS, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, UP Department of History
Dr. Rhodalyn C. Wani-Obias is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of the Philippines, Diliman, where she also earned her BA in Sociology and MA in History, and her Ph.D. in History with her doctoral dissertation entitled “The Production of Propaganda: Formation, Movement, and Cultivation of Knowledge on the Philippines, 1888–1894.” Her research and teaching focus on networks of propaganda between the late-nineteenth-century Philippines and Europe, the Philippine Propaganda Movement, as well as broader themes in nationalism, identity, social history, and the history of emotions.
ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS
This activity is organized by the UP Asian Center in collaboration with the Ateneo de Manila University - Office of the Assistant Vice President for Research, Creative Work, and Innovation, the UP TriCollege Ph.D. Philippine Studies Program, and the UP Department of History. Grab a copy of the book in paperback: ADMU Press Website | Shopee and Lazada
For inquiries, please contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 891-8500 loc. 3586.
