Southville faculty member Mark Adrian Ho presented a paper at the 10th International Conference on Philippine Studies (ICOPHIL) last July 6-8, 2016 at Silliman University in Dumaguete City. The said conference, focusing on the theme “Re-Imagining Community, Scholarship and Citizenship”, was attended by approximately 300 local and international scholars who presented their papers on Philippine studies in various fields, including the social sciences and the humanities.

Mr. Ho’s paper, entitled “Is the Nation Still Imagined? A Re-imagining of the Filipino in the Age of Facebook in Joselito Delos Reyes’ iStatus Nation”, is both a textual and contextual study of a book of creative nonfiction—essays, which are, in fact, Facebook posts/statuses—of 2015 National Book Award winner Joselito Delos Reyes. It is an in-depth analysis of contemporary Philippine literature as seen through the lens of the late historian and theorist Benedict Anderson, providing insights as to how author Delos Reyes re-imagines and (re-)presents the Filipino identity in today’s age of social media.

Other notable presenters were University of Santo Tomas’ Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo, University of the Philippines’ NicanorTiongson, Barnard College-Columbia University’s NefertiTadiar, University of California’s Christine Balance, State University of New York’s Nerissa Balce, University of Wollongong’s Lowell Bautista, Kyoto University’s Lisandro Claudio, Harvard University’s Genevieve Clutario, Northern Kentucky University’s Rolando Coloma, and Yale-National University of Singapore’s Laurel Fantauzzo.

Just like the Olympics, ICOPHIL, organized by the Philippine Studies Association, the foremost umbrella organization of scholars on the Philippines, is held every four years. In the past, the conference has taken residence at the University of Hawai’i at Mano’a, the Philippine Science Center in Quezon City, the Australian National University in Canberra, the International Institute of Asian Studies in Leiden, the Netherlands, Ateneo de Manila University and Western Michigan University in East Lansing, Michigan.

At the conference’s closing ceremonies, Dr. Bernardita Churchill, president of the Philippine Studies Association, happily announced that the next edition of ICOPHIL is slated to be held in 2020 in Spain.