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

Benedict Anderson, renowned and distinguished scholar of Southeast Asian studies, will be a guest at a special public forum on Monday, March 11, 2013, 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., at the GT-Toyota Asian Center Auditorium, University of the Philippines Diliman.

Entitled “A Conversation with Benedict Anderson,” the forum will be in the format of a panel interview to be conducted by four scholars from the University of the Philippines Diliman: Professor Eduardo Gonzalez, Asian Center; Professor Lily Rose Tope, Department of English and Comparative Literature; Associate Professor Ramon “Bomen” Guillermo, Department of Filipino and Philippine Literature; and Associate Professor Michiyo Yoneno-Reyes, Asian Center. 

The event is organized by the U.P. Asian Center, in partnership with the Asian Politics & Policy journal (Wiley-Blackwell/PSO); the Asian Studies journal; the UP Department of English and Comparative Literature; the UP Department of Political Science; and the UP Third World Studies Center. The interview will subsequently be published in Asian Politics & Policy.  

Benedict Richard O’Gorman Anderson is Aaron L. Binenkorb Professor Emeritus of International Studies, Government and Asian Studies at Cornell University. He is best known for his Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, which was first published in 1983 but has since undergone countless editions. It is a path-breaking and highly innovative work that has supplied one of the most popular and oft-quoted concepts in the academe and beyond. His other books include The Spectre of Comparisons (1998); Under Three Flags: Anarchism and the Anti-colonial Imagination (2007); and The Fate of Rural Hell: Asceticism and Desire in Buddhist Thailand (2012).


Admission is free and open to the public, but seats are on a first-come, first-served basis.  The GT-Toyota Asian Center Auditorium is located on Magsaysay cor. Guerrero Sts., University of the Philippines Diliman.

For inquiries, please contact Janus Nolasco or Kat Navallo at 981-8500 local 3586 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..