News Release: TWO NEW BOOKS BY E. SAN JUAN CHALLENGE HOARY ORTHODOXIES
U.S.-based Filipino author, Dr. E. San Juan, Jr., emeritus professor of English, Com..,parative Literature, and Ethnic Studies, has just published two books this year, one in English and one in Filipino--a versatile performance.
University of the Philippines Press launched his collection of essays on culture, politics and history last March: Between Empire and Insurgency: The Philippines in the New Millennium. More than four years in the making, the book includes essays on the Filipino diaspora, legendary African-American "buffalo soldier" David Fagen, women's liberation, Jose Garcia Villa and other writers in exile, the Moro struggle for self-determination, war as a literary topos, Gramsci and the politics of national-popular struggles, and problems of the indigenization movement in cultural studies. It continues his project of historical-materialist critique in his earlier work: From Globalization to National Liberation (UP Press).
The other book, Lupang Hinirang, Lupang Tinubuan, is a collection of essays in Filipino, published by De la Salle University Publishing House. It carries the subtitle "Mga Sanaysay sa Kritika, Kasaysayan, at Politikang Pangkultura." It contains commentaries on the writings of Rizal, Bonifacio, Balagtas, etc. and discourses on the achievement of Amado V. Hernandez, Jose Corazon de Jesus, Abadilla, Abueg, Lualhati Bautista, etc.. Aside from reflections on photography, semiotics, etc., it contains the first critical inquiry, written in Filipino, of Charles Sanders Peirce's triadic theory of signs. It also includes San Juan's singular conceptualist appropriation of proverbs and folk-sayings. The scenario of post-conceptualist articulation in Filipino is rendered in his recent book of poems, graphic designs, etc. entitled AMBIL (createspace.com).
San Juan was recently a fellow of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University, and of the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas. He has taught at various universities around the world, including Leuven University, Belgium; Tamkang University, Taiwan; University of Trento, Italy; Ateneo de Manila and University of the Philippines. He is currently professorial lecturer at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines. His most recent books are Balikbayang Sinta: An E. San Juan Reader (Ateneo), US Imperialism and Revolution in the Philippines (Palgrave); and Toward Filipino Self-determination (SUNY Press).-
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