Philippine Studies and the End of the American Century

The current struggles over US military bases and territorial sovereignty in the Pacific, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the phenomenon of globalization, alongside what is being called the “end of the American Century,” have pushed interdisciplinary scholars to develop new frameworks for engaging US Empire. The paper attempts to draw out the various figurations of “Philippine Studies” and “US empire” in the papers, which may include analyses of comparative colonialisms, class and participation in social justice movements, as well as the intersections between globalization and imperial conquest. By considering the papers’ insights on disciplinary formation and knowledge practices, the present analysis will also attend to their entanglements with contemporary articulations of exceptionalism and containment. The paper is especially interested in how recent incarnations and positionings of Philippine Studies generate insight on notions of the unique, particular, special, and relational that have intellectually and institutionally structured colonial discourse and critique.