The Philippines and the Filipinos: Convergences and Divergences of Filipino/a Studies Scholarship

John Blanco
Literature
UC San Diego

Sarita Echavez See
Media and Cultural Studies
UC Riverside

Our conference analyzed and evaluated the key lines of academic research in Philippine studies, which converge or intersect with the emergence of Filipino-American and (increasingly) trans-Pacific Asian cultural studies. The conference focused on several keywords / key categories that emblematize the intersectional nature of a new, global and interdisciplinary Filipino/a Studies, with particular attention to assessing the salient lines of research and their implications for the growth of an emergent field. These keywords / key categories included: transmigration; (post-) imperial modernity; the anomalous category of the indigenous / indigeneity; and hybridity (racial, cultural, religious, and linguistic). They were selected as nexus points between scholars primarily affiliated with Southeast Asian area studies and Filipino/a-American Studies in the US. Faculty from both fields of scholarship were selected as moderators in a series of round-table discussions.