Promise of the Foreign

by Rafael, Vicente L.

• ISBN13: 9780822336518
• ISBN10: 0822336510
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-03-01
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr

Summary

"In the tradition of James Siegel and Benedict Anderson, Vicente L. Rafael has given us a daring book about the ambivalent origins of the nation in the Philippines. It will be loved and emulated by students of nationalism, Southeast Asia, and comparative literary studies everywhere. There is good reason for this, for it is a beautiful book, a book of readings for lovers of literature, a book about literature for the media age. Mostly, however, it is a book about the foreignness in us all: an unassailable refutation of nationalist ideologies of purity."--Rosalind C. Morris, author of "In the Place of Origins: Modernity and Its Mediums in Northern Thailand"

Author Biography

Vicente L. Rafael is a professor of history at the University of Washington.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
Preface	xv
Introduction: Forgiving the Foreign	1	(16)
1. Translation and Telecommunication: Castilian as a Lingua Franca	17	(19)
2. The Phantasm of Revenge: On Rizal's Fili	36	(30)
3. The Call of Death: On Rizal's Noli	66	(30)
4. The Colonial Uncanny: The Foreign Lodged in the Vernacular	96	(23)
5. Making the Vernacular Foreign: Tagalog as Castilian	119	(13)
6: Pity, Recognition, and the Risks of Literature in Balagtas	132	(27)
7: "Freedom = Death": Conjurings, Secrecy, Revolution	159	(24)
Afterword: Ghostly Voices: Kalayaan's Address	183	(8)
Notes	191	(22)
Works Cited	213	(10)
Index	223