Academic publishing in the Philippines--that is, the existence and role of university presses in the production, dissemination, and creation of knowledge--has been the subject of many papers as a vital industry in Philippine publishing, represented by statistics and developments, but its history has not been written. Thus, the study aims to chronicle the young but already rich story by chronicling the evolution, development, and changing role of the Philippines' top university presses at the University of Sto Tomas, University of the Philippines-Diliman, Ateneo de Manila University, and De La Salle University-Manila. A take off from Vicente S Hernandez's History of Books and Libraries in the Philippines 1521–1900 (Manila: National Commission for Culture and the Arts, 1996) and Patricia May B. Jurilla's Bestsellers of the Twentieth Century: A History of the Book in the Philippines (QC: Ateneo de Manila U P, 2008), the chronicle will try to establish too the intrinsic connections between divergent but converging histories, namely of Philippine (a) books and printing, (b) printing and publishing, and (c) educational publishing and higher education. Thus, although not as consistently dynamic as those of university presses at Oxford and Cambridge, the study also aspires to shed light on the particular dynamics of an Asian university press that started religious with Spanish colonization, grew in the light of American educational reforms, and flourished in an English speaking environment amid a billion-peso publishing industry and an educational system beset with many issues.

Necessary Fictions examines the intimate but fraught connection between Philippine literature and nationalist discourse during the post-war period. Through close readings of the fiction of Jose Rizal, Amado Hernandez, Nick Joaquin, Edgardo Reyes, Ricardo Lee, Kerima Polotan, Carlos Bulosan, and Mano de Verdades Posadas, this book argues that the long-standing affinity between Philippine literature and nationalism is rooted in part on the power of literature to formulate, and work through, a set of questions that are central to nationalist debates on the possibility and necessity of social change: What is the relationship between knowledge and action? between the personal and the political? between the foreign and the Filipino? between culture and history, culture and politics, culture and economics? Moreover, Philippine literature does not merely illuminate and deepen our understanding of the fundamental assumptions which inform nationalist discourse and practice. It also registers the contradictions which exceed nationalist attempts to intervene, intellectually and politically, in the complex realities at work in Philippine society. These “excesses”, which bear the ineradicable signatures of the oppressed and the marginalized, expose the anxieties—and the liberatory potential—underpinning the difficult creation of Philippine modernity in the twentieth century and beyond. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER ONE: The Problem of Consciousness 16 CHAPTER TWO: The Fiction of a Knowable Community 53 CHAPTER THREE: Literature and History 105 CHAPTER FOUR: Alien Nation 150 CHAPTER FIVE: Authorizing the Personal and the Political 198 CHAPTER SIX: Unfinishing Revolution 242 CHAPTER SEVEN: The Politics of Criticism 277 CONCLUSION 311 WORKS CITED 324

A contribution to the yet unwritten histories of Philippine Studies (PS), the Institute of Philippine Culture (IPC), and the Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU) Press, this article examines the rise of Filipino postcolonial institutions of knowledge production in the shadow of the Cold War. It argues that PS, IPC, and ADMU Press constituted a coherent and coordinated network that sought to establish a postcolonial culture of knowledge production after 1946. Moreover, their development signaled the rise of decolonizing thought that coincided with the emergence of Cold War area studies.

This thesis examines the relationship between print culture and American imperial endeavors in the Philippines. Specifically, it investigates articles in daily newspapers – the saliency of the American newspaper created a way for the public to encounter the Filipino native through representations formed by colonial actors and observers. The thesis’ individual chapters explore three distinct contexts in which discourses of an emerging imperial-racial framework were translated into the narratives of reportage. The degree to which the medium of the newspaper can replicate ideas, sounds and images created a shared experience and produced widespread stereotypes. Ultimately, these accounts surveyed shaped American expectations and attitudes about the Filipino identity.

A simple and basic look at the progression/development of literature in the Philippines.