About the Literary and Cultural Studies Program
Highlights
- Manages the AB in Literature, the MA in Literary and Cultural Studies, and the Literature component of the PhD in English Language and Literature which is now being reviewed.
- Is designated by the Commission on Higher Education as a Center of Excellence for Literature.
- Publishes the Scopus- and ISI-indexed international journal, Kritika Kultura.
- Trains graduates who have gone on to do further studies at such institutions as Princeton, NYU, Columbia, SOAS, and Oxford. Alumni have also built successful careers in relevant industries and professions, including advertising, foreign service, journalism, law, publishing, and even medicine.
- Features faculty members who hold doctorates from some of the best universities in the world, including Adelaide, Brown, Manchester, and Yale. They are active scholars and creative writers with significant records of publication.
- Envisions itself as a leading center for the study of Anglophone literatures, especially Philippine Literature in English which represents its unique strength. No other departments here or abroad consider Philippine literature in English as their disciplinary base. The Program complements the study of literature with methods and theories from cultural studies, drawing on allied disciplines such as history, philosophy, sociology, and art.
- Helps to promote the research profile of the Ateneo in the humanities and its initiatives to rebuild the nation and internationalize.
About LCSP
Unique nationally and internationally, LCSP is an academic unit within the School of Humanities whose core functions are the teaching, development, and dissemination of literary and cultural studies at undergraduate and graduate levels. It promotes the study of Philippine literature in English at home and in the global diaspora, the production of new knowledge relevant to literature and culture, and the advancement of the university’s mission. It cultivates the appreciation of literary and extraliterary texts, focusing on their writing, circulation, translation, and evaluation. It recognizes the mutual importance of canonical and emergent literatures, adopting tested and newfangled methods in literary and cultural studies to analyze texts as they appear in academic settings and in everyday life.
On the one hand, the Program stresses close reading, attending to the literariness of writing. On the other hand, it incorporates discourse analysis, clarifying the ethics of signifying practices. The former highlights literature, studying questions of aesthetic form, whereas the latter draws on cultural studies, exploring matters of social content. Interdisciplinary and international in ways that are situated in local exigencies, the Program draws on allied disciplines, such as history, philosophy, sociology, and art in its study of texts. The intellectual resources of contemporary interdisciplines, like ethnic studies and queer studies, are part and parcel of its growth. Our courses embody the breadth and depth of our interests: Literatures of the Philippines, Special Topics in Literature and the Humanities, and Literature and the Social Sciences, among others.
One of the key tasks of the Program is the making of methods and theories that are attuned to the dynamics of Filipino realities as they are expressed through literary and extraliterary forms, understood in traditional and contemporary ways, and appreciated by means of aesthetic and social touchstones. The Queen’s English has a place in it, and so does Our English. Rooted in Filipino Anglophone poetry, fiction, and drama from the American colonial period to the postcolonial present, the Program embraces the vast diversity of world literatures in English spanning various histories and cultures.
The importance of Philippine literature in English to the Program is manifested in many ways and represents the unique character of LCSP. For no other academic program in the country or elsewhere takes Philippine literature in English as its core identity. Our faculty have published on its most canonical figures, such as Jose Garcia Villa, Carlos Bulosan, Nick Joaquin, Edith Tiempo, Luis Francia, Jessica Hagedorn, and Vicente Groyon, to name a few. Our electives also demonstrate the range of our investments in its diverse traditions: Our Body Poetic and Sense of Country, Philippine English and Filipino-American Postcoloniality, and Contemporary Fiction of Filipinos Abroad, among others.
At the graduate level, the Program promotes the production of situated knowledges and encourages cosmopolitan visions, emphasizing original and innovative research that contributes to nation-building and the common fund of human imagination. At the undergraduate level, it fosters Filipino writers, readers, and critics who are holistic in terms of sensibility, service-oriented in terms of ethics, global in terms of ambition, and liberal in terms of orientation. Divided into two tracks, the undergraduate degree in literature stresses scholarly depth, on the one hand, and professional breadth, on the other.
To produce and disseminate original research, the Program publishes the Scopus- and ISI-indexed electronic journal, Kritika Kultura. The e-journal is open-access, standing at the forefront of knowledge production in the Philippines and the Southeast Asian region. It has a regular section of research articles and another one devoted to creative writing. Kritika Kultura also features special issues devoted to cutting-edge topics and timely issues in literature and cultural studies.
Our professors are passionate teachers and creative writers with advanced degrees from some of the world’s leading research universities. They are also pioneering scholars who redraw the maps of literary and cultural knowledge in the Philippines and beyond.