The Asian Center, University of the Philippines Diliman will be hosting Dr. Patricio N. Abinales, Professor of Asian Studies at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, from 1 June 2014 to 18 July 2014. 

As Visiting Professor under the Office of the Vice President of Academic Affairs (OVPAA), Dr. Abinales will be teaching a graduate course at the Asian Center, Asian Studies (AS) 253: Readings in Southeast Asia II, entitled “Academic Pilgrimages, Methodological Approaches, and Analytical Concepts from Southeast Asian Studies.”

The graduate seminar, which will run from 4 June to 8 July 2014, Mondays to Fridays, 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM, will help students examine how the personal histories of three scholars of Southeast Asia  shaped their intellectual interests, and how their subsequent scholarship enriched Southeast Asian Studies as well other areas and disciplines. Its second objective is for students to learn more about the approaches and techniques these scholars deployed, which they can then use as possible guides to their own research.

The main focus of the seminar will be the works of Benedict Anderson (Imagined Communities), plus a number of publications by two other Southeast Asianists, James Scott  (Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance) and Clifford Geertz (The Interpretation of Cultures). 

PHOTO: Asian Studies 253 Poster | Design/Layout by Katrina Navallo

Asian Studies 253 is not a course on theory, but an intensive reading and writing seminar on methodologies.  Students will be writing thought pieces on assigned readings and videotapes. At the latter part of the seminar they must also present drafts of their respective works. These may be theses or dissertation proposals, written chapters (especially those which have literature reviews and methodologies), and, if available, the pre-defense theses/dissertations themselves. These will be discussed and commented on by all members of the class. 

The course is not available for CRS registration and cross-enroll. Interested students will have to go to the Asian Center to enroll. Slots are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Professor Abinales is the author of, among other books, Making Mindanao: Cotabato and Davao in the Formation of the Philippine Nation-State (2000); Images of State Power: Essays of Philippine Politics from the Margins(1999); and Orthodoxy and History in the Muslim-Mindanao Narrative (2010). He obtained his Ph.D. in Government and Southeast Asian Studies from Cornell University.  

For more information, call the Office of the College of Secretary at the Asian Center at 927.0909; email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or visit Room 203, Hall of Wisdom, Asian Center, University of the Philippines Diliman. The Asian Center offers MA programs in Asian Studies, covering Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and West Asia.  

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