El jueves 2 de junio, Emilio Vivó de la Universidad de Amberes, Diana Villanueva de la Universidad de Extremadura pero de estancia de investigación en Amberes y Rocío Ortuño de la Universidad de Alcalá y la Universidad de Amberes, presentaron un seminario sobre literatura hispanofilipina a la vez que daban a conocer el proyecto.

El seminario tuvo lugar a las 17.00 de Manila, y contó con la presencia de Jonathan Chua, coordinador del proyecto en Ateneo de Manila.

Los resúmenes de las ponencias son los siguientes:

PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST: PAZ ZAMORA MASCUÑANA by Diana Villanueva

This paper aims at contributing to the study of Filipino writer Paz Zamora Mascuñana (1888-1978) by discussing the findings of her life and works obtained through archival research conducted at the Library of Congress from February to May of 2018 thanks to a SAAS/Fulbright grant. This goal is also enhanced by the insight gained through scholarly work done at the University of Antwerp (Belgium) since February 2022 under the supervision of Prof. Rocío Ortuño thanks to a Requalification Grant of the University of Extremadura funded thanks to the European Union scheme Next Generation EU (NGEU). Mascuñana and her multifaceted production have already been the object of study by Hidalgo (2003), Lifshey (2017), Ortuño (2018), Fernandez (2019), and Orquiza (2020). Their analysis proves the interest in exploring the legacy of a woman who embodied the ideal of the progressive and well-to-do women of her time who, while proving her gift as a storyteller and commitment as a social reformer, also defended the domestic ideals associated with the Filipino woman as the epitome of the moral qualities needed for the success of the republic. In this talk, special attention will be paid to Zamora’s short story collection Mi obolo (1924) as an expression of her political views.

THE INSTRUMENTALIZATION OF JOSÉ RIZAL IN SPAIN DURING THE DICTATORSHIP OF FRANCISCO FRANCO (1939-1975) by Emilio Vivó

During the military dictatorship of General Francisco Franco (1939-1975), the Filipino hero José Rizal (1861-1896) appeared often in Spanish publications and was the object of numerous tributes by the Francoist authorities, not only in Spain but also in the Philippines. Several Spanish writers instrumentalized the figure of Rizal to gain Philippine diplomatic support for Franco’s Spain after the defeat of its fascist allies in WWII.I will argue that these texts perform what Banerjee (2008, p. 53) calls colonial and ethnical ventriloquism, using Rizal’s figure from a Eurocentric and imperialist perspective that interestedly manipulates and selects his own voice. Rizal was thought to be the product of the Spanish religious orders and universities, as Antonio Pérez de Olaguer (1943, pp. 154-155), posited, and to have “lived, [been] born and died with the name of Spain on his lips,” as Ernesto Giménez Caballero (1971, p. 23) asserted. Despite Rizal’s pro-independence and Masonic past and despite having been executed during the Philippine revolution by the same Spanish colonial military Franco belonged to, these authors canonized an image of Rizal as a good Spaniard and good Catholic, as a symbol of a voluntarist, peaceful and evangelical Spanish colonization that defined a shared and transnational “national essence” as described in Hispano-Americanist postulates (Sepúlveda Muñoz, 2005). By doing so, these authors asserted Francoist exceptionalism while attempting to influence the definition of the Philippine nation for their own benefit, fictionally compensating for the frustrated imperial nostalgia of the Francoist Regime.

THE RECEPTION OF JESÚS BALMORI’S TRIP TO MEXICO by Rocío Ortuño

In 1932 the Filipino journalist, poet, and writer Jesús Balmori traveled to México with two self-assigned missions: creating networks with other Mexican poets and organizing an event for the Mexican society to learn about Japan. The linguistic and historical situation of the Philippines had led the modernista movement to have an extraordinary length in the country: it was still ongoing in the 1930s, while in the Spanish-speaking countries the ending date is normally situated around 1916. This literary movement, which originally started in Latin America, had an orientalist trend that idealized and exoticized some Asian countries, especially Japan, although the Philippine version of it tended rather to the self-identification with that legendary “Orient.” Balmori had, however, since a supposed first trip to Japan in the 1910s, developed a fascination with this country. As Axel Gasquet and Paula Park have indicated, Balmori got really disappointed to see that there were no more poets in Mexicoconnecting with the modernista aesthetics that he admired, which meant the last chance to reintegrate the Philippines into a Spanish-speaking network of countries and writers which had shared literary ideals and fought against the common enemy of the US imperialism between the 1890s and 1916. This paper will focus on the reception of Balmori’s endeavors in Mexico. We will look into the Mexican newspapers echoing Balmori’s arrival and presence in Mexico and the literary event that he organized. It will also examine the divergent trajectories and evolutions of literature in both countries, the Philippines and Mexico, to provide an explanation of the poor idea that Balmori developed about Mexican literature and will also take into account the reception of the Sino-Japanese war to understand the reluctance of the Mexican society towards the Japanese centered event that Balmori organized.

El seminario fue grabado y se puede ver en la página de Facebook de Kritika Kultura y en este vídeo