LIKHAAN: The UP Institute of Creative Writing will hold the fourth installment of the Interdisciplinary Book Forum (IBF) this March 15, 2-5pm at the Pavilion 1131, Palma Hall, UP Diliman. The book-in-focus for this iteration is The End of National Cinema: Filipino Film at the Turn of the Century by Prof. Patrick F. Campos.

The panel of discussants for this installment of the IBF will be composed of National Artist Dr. Bienvenido Lumbera of the UP Departamento ng Filipino at Panitikan ng Pilipinas, Prof. Eileen Ramirez of the UP Art Studies Deparment, Dr. Neil Martial Santillan of the UP Department of History, Prof. Nick Deocampo of the UP Film Institute, and Prof. Ryan Oliva of the UP College of Law. ICW Director Dr. Roland Tolentino will serve as moderator. The discussants will share their thoughts about the book, particularly as it relates to the nature and context of their respective disciplines.

According to UP Likhaan fellow and UP Press Director Dr. J Neil Garcia, Patrick Campos’ book  “takes the controversial position that, in contradistinction to the thematic and representational content of many of our acclaimed and “touchstone” films, the technological, logistical, and financial mode of production—the very materiality—of this medium translocalized or cosmopolitanized it right from the get-go, making the recent rejection of the rubric of nationality in making sense of this art form something of a long superseded fait accompli: a kind of super-delayed reaction or tellingly belated recognition of what really has been a long-established fact.

“It’s indeed curious why this oversight was sustained in the scholarship and in the literature for so long (although we can only surmise that the nostalgia of decolonization, to a certain extent, certainly played its protracted and mythmaking part). In any case, this critical insight informs Prof. Campos’s readings of a selection of important Filipino films—arguably proficient in the depth and sweep of their interpretive gestures. Among other possible queries, we can ask just what kind of “usefulness” this book might find not just for film or media studies, but also for postnational, cosmopolitan, cultural, and global (re)theorizings, especially in our part of the restively transitioning and increasingly uneven world.”

The UP ICW’s IBF is held once every semester and constitutes a vital component of the UP Likhaan’s Emerging Interdisciplinary Research Grant. With this Forum, the Likhaan, in cooperation with the UP Press, seeks to provide an academic venue in which to realize the imperative for dialogue and intellectual engagement across the various disciplines, which of course speaks directly to the EIDR’s core agenda. Being the center for the study and development of creative and to a certain extent critical writing in the UP System, the Likhaan is in a unique position to carry out such an important academic mission.

Admission to the IBF is free. For inquiries, contact the UP Likhaan via 981-8500 loc. 2117 or email uplikhaan@gmail.com.