The UP Asian Center will host the onsite book talk of n e (i) t h e r : poems on passions & peregrinations by Dr. Noel Christian A. Moratilla on 13 October 2026, 2 PM (GMT+8), at the Seminar Room, Asian Center, UP Diliman. The event is open to the public. Snacks will be provided. Attendees are encouraged to register online.
ABOUT THE BOOK
n e (i) t h e r : poems on passions & peregrinations gathers mostly unpublished poems which have been composed fitfully over the last many years. The book contains reflexive, agonistic, angry, dissenting, conscienticized, and at times playful ruminations on selected aspects of our multilayered individual and collective existence, in a language that may be contemplative, but may also be trenchant and delirious. The collection, as the title suggests, attempts to fulfill a two-fold task: to give vent to the entanglements between, among other things, successes and tribulations, the real and the ideal, or the universal and the psychical; and to memorialize varying degrees of attachment, however transitory, to places and situations – from the enigmatic but all-too-familiar streets of Krus na Ligas and Tandang Sora to the labyrinthine alleyways of Alfama in Lisbon. Overall, the poetic voice indulges in the exuberant celebration of the self, the relentless interrogation of the commonsensical, the ever incomplete and desperate attempt to capture solitude in a foreign land, and the indictment of tendencies and institutions that have made our planetary presence all but unbearable. n e (i) t h e r is really a raging provocation against a world that has sunk into complaisance and complacency.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NOEL CHRISTIAN A. MORATILLA, Ph.D.
Dean and Professor, Asian Center, UP Diliman
Dr. Noel Christian A. Moratilla is the Dean and a 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 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.
ABOUT THE ORGANIZER
This book talk is organized by the UP Asian Center