My fantastic weekend just came to a close, and tomorrow I return to my 9-to-5 "exit strategy / escape route" job. I can't say enough about the intellectual energy of the roundtables, and the superior quality of the circulated papers (which I devoured -- you have no idea how much exciting stuff is out there, and about to be published), and just the overwhelming sense of fun.
(Can I add as well that the late-night discussions -- actually, they started at dinner -- in the hotel lobby were just transgressively, hilariously filthy? Readers will see some sanitized examples shortly, but I don't think I'll be reproducing the Pinoy Academic Drag Queen Names list here, partly because mine just doesn't sound sexy enough. I expect it to be sent by email from the northeast pretty soon.)
And now for more random non-intellectual musings. I must confess that, despite my excitement (and temperatures in the teens notwithstanding), I was worried and fearful about being the lone, unaffiliated non-academic interloper presenting at the conference. I honestly didn't feel particularly worthy to be included with all these luminaries. It had already taken me about a year of difficult readjustment to get used to the idea that I was now an Ex-Professor. (Any resemblance to "ex-parrot" is deliberate.) Amazing, really, how the academic life seems to be the perfect breeding ground for ontological insecurity -- but then I really know of no other career.
These anxieties (mostly) melted away once I got there -- not necessarily because my feelings of self-worth magically increased, but because I suddenly felt like I belonged somewhere. It helped that I personally knew probably a good five-sixths of the participants (and of course met and talked with the other one-sixth later). But there was also a keen historical sense on my part -- mostly engendered by Rey Ileto's fascinating keynote address on scrapbooks -- of how these linkages and networks were forged throughout the years in classrooms, in conferences, in libraries, in hotel lobby bars, in textual exchanges. After all, these were folks whose books I had taught, or had read, looked up to, informed my own work, been on panels with, e-mailed, gotten drunk with, and so on, throughout my relatively long adventures in higher education. Half my life -- essentially, my life outside of the Philippines -- has been spent in that arena, and these were most of the people who were present, both physically and symbolically, in that journey.
There's a lot of negative talk about "the Filipino community" -- the general hollowness of the concept, the way it's used as an anti-intellectualish cudgel to beat the recalcitrant into submission (and ha! I contribute to that discussion as well), or as the amorphous, blobby mass to which Filipino American scholars and activists must pay obeisance (and not dare criticize). But the genuine intellectual acuity and emotional warmth of this particular Filipino community cannot be denied.
And as much as the word "family" can be abused in a heteronormative fashion (and honest to god, some people have to learn that the social sciences really aren't that heteronormative), I have come to see, especially in recent years, this group of intellectuals as members of my extended family. (We Filipinos are supposed to be expert practitioners of fictive kinship after all.) And yes, families can be fucked up, and sibling rivalries will always exist, but such networks can also be the basis of enduring intellectual and affective solidarities, from which more political work and critique (both of the self and others) can be done. I honestly can't think of a more generous, supportive, wonderful (and good-looking!) group of scholars anywhere as the ones I hung out with this weekend, for whom I will be forever thankful.
So -- thanks and congratulations to the organizers, August Espiritu and Martin Manalansan (who's currently Acting Director of Asian American Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), for an amazing, unforgettable conference. (And curse you too for making me radically rethink my career trajectory! Again!)
Posted by the wily filipino at March 10, 2008 12:35 AM