Two Xavier University - Ateneo de Cagayan’s Department of English Language and Literature professors, Dr Lilia Cotejar and Dr Arlene Yandug, presented their papers at the 5th Literary Studies Conference in Yogyakarta, Indonesia held in October.
The academic conversation revolved around the theme, “Textual Mobilities: Diaspora, Migration, Transnationalism, and Multiculturalism” through various forms of texts and experiences of diaspora society.
Cotejar’s paper explored the various ways women are inscribed in Asian novels. Focusing on Ninotchka Rosca’s State of War (1988), Cotejar explained how these inscriptions are in fact used to reclaim their precolonial identity.
On the other hand, Yandug inquired into the construction of identities in marginal and liminal experiences. She argued that the blurring of lines between fantasy and reality is a locus for techniques of subversion in Rosario Lucero’s Feast and Famine (2003).
XAVIER ATENEO LITERATURE PROFESSORS. Pictured above are Dr Lilia Cotejar (left) and Dr Arlene Yandug (right) of Xavier Ateneo's Department of English Language and Literature. Supplied photo.
Aside from having individually presented their papers with clarity and depth, the two faculty members were able to establish friendly ties with the host faculty of Sanata Dharma University English Letters Department.
As a token of friendship and future collaboration, the Xavier Ateneo professors exchanged journals with Sanata Dharma University - Faculty of English Letters dean Dr Paulus Ari Subagyo.
The confab's plenary speakers included Dr Elisabeth Arti Wulandari (Indonesia), Lian Gouw (USA), and Inseop Shin (Korea).
The theme of the conference, according to the event’s official website, is “expansive enough to allow for a whole range of literary and cultural forms and media texts, approaches, perspectives, and disciplinary and interdisciplinary dialogues around the notions of home diaspora, migration, transnationalism, and multiculturalism while allowing for specific issues as focus in national and international contexts.”∎