Introductory description

This module investigates how the clashes and conflicts of the last fifty years of Spanish rule in the Philippines played out in the cultural sphere. It adopts a comparative approach, reading Spanish and Filipino thinkers in dialogue. It aims to give students a keen understanding of the issues at stake in Spanish colonialism in the Philippines and of the emergence of Philippine nationalism. Contextualised close readings of a variety of literary texts and contemporary commentaries will equip students to analyse the discussions and debates, and their legacies.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

1. Introduction: the Philippine Paradox
2. Language and Identity in the Colonial Philippines
3. Representing Filipinas: History and the Colonial Imagination
4. Representing Filipinas: Sex, Race, and the Colonial Imagination
5. Commodifying Filipinas: tobacco, shawls, and the Philippines Exhibition (1887)
6. READING WEEK
7. Reclaiming Filipinas: José Rizal, national hero
8. Rizal and the Language(s) of Resistance
9. After Rizal: Revolution and Repression
10. The Spanish Legacy

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• - a keen understanding of the issues at stake in Spanish colonialism in the Philippines and its aftermath
• - a sound understanding of the issues at stake in the emergence of Philippine nationalism
• - ability to read and analyse complex literary texts and relate them to wider contexts and discourses
• - ability to marshal information and write comparatively across cultures and languages

Indicative reading list

Primary Texts

Pablo Feced, ‘Ellos y Nosotros’. El Liberal (Madrid), 13 Feb. 1887. Ed. Vasco Caini, Tonos 18
(Dec. 2009): https://www.um.es/tonosdigital/znum18/secciones/peri-1-
ellos_nosotros.htm
Graciano López y Jaena, ‘Los indios de Filipinas,’ El Liberal (Madrid), 16 Feb. 1887.
José Montero y Vidal. Cuentos Filipinos (1876/1883).
https://ia700708.us.archive.org/2/items/agm3478.0001.001.umich.edu/agm3478.00
01.001.umich.edu.pdf
José Rizal. Noli me tangere (1887). Any Spanish version / English translation Noli me tangere
(Touch me not) by Harold Augenbraum. Penguin Books, 2006.
Eduardo Martín de la Cámara, ed. Parnaso Filipino. Antología de Poetas del Archipiélago
Magallánico. Barcelona: Maucci, 1922.
https://ia802609.us.archive.org/13/items/parnasofilipino16201gut/16201-h/16201-h.htm#p103
‘Un español’. Filipinas: Problema fundamental. Por un español de larga residencia en aquellas
islas [response to publication of Noli me tangere]. Madrid: Luis Aguado, 1891.
https://archive.org/stream/filipinasproble00islagoog#page/n5/mode/2up

International

All modules delivered in SMLC are necessarily international. Students engage with themes and ideas from a culture other than that of the UK and employ their linguistic skills in the analysis of primary materials from a non-Anglophone context. Students will also be encouraged to draw on the experiences of visiting exchange students in the classroom and will frequently engage with theoretical and critical frameworks from across the world.

Subject specific skills

This module will develop students’ linguistic skills through engaging with primary materials in the target language. It will build students’ capacity to engage with aspects of Hispanic culture through analysis of this primary material and through seminar discussion aimed at deeper critical thinking. In particular, students’ awareness of Spain and the Philippines at Empire's End will be enhanced through lectures and seminars which engage in scholarship in the field.

Transferable skills

All SMLC culture modules demand critical and analytical engagement with artefacts from target-language cultures. In the course of independent study, class work and assessment students will develop the following skills: written and oral communication, creative and critical thinking, problem solving and analysis, time management and organisation, independent research in both English and their target language(s), intercultural understanding and the ability to mediate between languages and cultures, ICT literacy in both English and the target language(s), personal responsibility and the exercise of initiative.