We Were War Surplus, Too

Nick Joaquin and the Impossibilities of Filipino Historical Becoming

Bibliographic Data

ID5838878
AuthorsJosen Masangkay Diaz (0009-0000-3975-0720, University of San Diego, corresponding author)
Year2015
Issue24
Publication date2015-01-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueKritika Kultura (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1656-152X • E-ISSN: 2094-6937
PublisherAteneo de Manila University (PUBLISHER • PH)
DOI10.13185/kk2015.02401
OpenAlexW4232608788
LanguageEN
References cited8

This article reads Nick Joaquin's 1983 novel Cave and Shadows alongside his persistent engagement with Filipino identity and history to argue that an investigation of Philippine historiography reveals the colonial entrapments of Filipino subjectivity. A mystery novel set in the period immediately preceding Ferdinand Marcos's 1972 declaration of martial law, it contextualizes Marcos authoritarianism within the scope of post-World War II concerns about national politics in the wake of independence. It also simultaneously grapples with overarching ideas about the legacies of colonial conquest and their effects on the Filipino common sense. Jack Henson's traversals through Manila find him grappling with the quandary of "true Filipinoness," a literary dilemma that reveals Joaquin's investment in wrestling with claims to any inherent Filipino identity as a discursive exploration of the arc of Philippine history. Rather than adhere to Filipino subjectivity as a coherent, unproblematic social formation; the novel explores it as an episteme for locating and interrogating broader systems of governance and power. Such a paradigm offers modalities for contesting Marcos's revisionist history projects. Such projects sought to recuperate Filipino identity from the dregs of a colonial past in order to celebrate its universal humanity in ways that aligned with the modernizing tactics of global development

Aesthetics · Colonialism · Dystopia · Historiography · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Subjectivity · Asian Studies and History · Gender Studies · History · Law · Philippine History and Culture

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access