August to September

“Contacts and Continuities 2,” is an academic conference from September 9 to October 4, 2024, at the Ateneo de Manila University. This event will delve into the historical and contemporary dynamics of US-Philippine relations through keynote addresses and panel discussions on topics like education, health, culture, and the environment.

In commemoration of the 52nd Anniversary of the Declaration of Martial Law, the Ateneo Martial Law Museum and Library (AMLML), the School of Social Sciences (SOSS), and its partners organized multiple events throughout September.

The Tagpuan Center for Dialogue, Research, and Collaboration (TAGPUAN), in partnership with the Office of Student Activities for Higher Education (OSA-HE), introduced ‘Sinsayan sa Katipunan’ on August 29, 2024. As part of the Not Just Coffee Project (NJC), Sinsayan aimed to design student spaces for encounters that promote self-directed experiences for relaxation, creativity, and conversations.

Hosted by the Rizal Library at the Outdoor Study Area of the First Pacific Hall, Sinsayan offered a calming, nature-infused space where the students engaged in clay modeling, DIY crafts, and quiet reflection, accompanied by acoustic and jazz music, all while enjoying coffee and light snacks. One student described Sinsayan as a "third space"—a peaceful retreat between home and work/academic life, where they could escape the busyness of daily routines, and focus on self-care, creative expression, and meaningful conversations with friends and fellow community members.

TAGPUAN plans to continue organizing similar events to nurture meaningful connections and looks forward to expanding these opportunities for more encounters to take place on campus.

Tagpuan and NoBox Philippines designed a dialogue approach in presenting findings of research on a community where illicit drugs are part of everyday life. The event, “Tingin namin, tingin sa amin, buhay natin”, was held last Sept 9 at Heyden Hall. Its presentation format was built around two rounds of arts- and stimuli-based conversations, providing a new space to discuss and understand the grassroots life of drug use.

The event forms part of the larger national and international conversation on drug affairs toward harm reduction. It was participated by representatives from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, Dangerous Drugs Board, Department of Health, Department of Justice, the Manila mission of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Human Rights Watch, other civil society groups, and the academe.

As a center for dialogue, research, and collaboration in Ateneo, Tagpuan desires to help in the Jesuit mission of bridging cultural divides.

In case you missed it

The Ateneo King Sejong Institute (AKSI), in collaboration with the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in the Philippines, the Korean Studies Program, and the School of Social Sciences, is pleased to invite the Ateneo community to a special lecture by ROK Ambassador for Cultural Cooperation Sohn Jie-ae. The lecturetook place last Friday, September 6, 2024, from 9:30 AM to 11:00 AM at the Window on Korea (WOK) Area, located on the 4th floor of the Rizal Library.

Titled “Korea’s Culture Wave: The Story Behind Its Strength,” it is part of AKSI’s initiatives to promote a deeper understanding of Korean culture in the Philippines. The event follows the recent designation of Ateneo de Manila University as a new King Sejong Institute by the King Sejong Institute Foundation on July 1, 2024.

The Chinese Studies Program and Ricardo Leong Center for Chinese Studies hosted a roundtable discussion with the language teaching programs and departments of Ateneo regarding the impacts of artificial intelligence on language learning and teaching on 15 July 2024. The event was a platform for the language teaching to share their thoughts, experiences, and best practices in responding to this quickly developing technology.

The lecture by Mr. Jarred Irwin K. Chiang was focused on using artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT as a means to personalize the learning of the Chinese language. One of the key reasons for his pursuing his study was due to the inability of formal textbooks to capture the interests of language learners in a meaningful way and to update them about colloquial terminologies. Another is the way that large language models such as ChatGPT are able to build specific vocabulary lists that are tailor-made to the interests of individual students.

Amidst this, he stressed the important role that teachers will continue to play in teaching students about the appropriate way to use such technologies and to continue teaching matters that even these large language models still struggle with such as complex grammar structures, and most importantly the capacity to empathize with the individual struggles of each student in learning Chinese language at their own pace. Organized by the Chinese Studies Program and the Ricardo Leong Center for Chinese Studies.

On 22 August 2024, Md. Nazrul Islam Ph.D. gave a lecture on the Belt & Road Initiative and Bangladesh-China Connectivity. While his presentation recognized that the BRI’s implementation often comes in the form of physical infrastructure projects as Bangladesh’s experience has also reflected through the bridge and railway projects that China is funding, he also posited that his notion of connectivity goes beyond physical ones. His presentation focused on presenting connectivity as a sociocultural phenomenon wherein people are connected not only by physical structures, but also by the similarities in their beliefs and practices, and that these linkages go beyond national borders.

Offering tea has been a form of greeting for years, this has been an important part of different cultures around the globe. For the Chinese, tea has been used as a sign of respect and hospitality and is still used today to welcome guests and show courtesy. Moreover, it is also a good way to start new conversations and build relationships. This school year, the Chinese Studies Program started the first semester with the CSP Tea 茶 time. Hot tea and popular Chinese snacks were served at the CSP office at Leong Hall Room 200 from August 7 to 9, during the office hours of 8:00am to 3:00pm. Hundreds of students, staff and instructors flocked to the office for the festive start of the semester, while learning about time and food culture for 3 days.

The Moon Festival or the Mid-autumn festival (中秋节) is a thanksgiving for the bountiful harvest. It has been celebrated for more than 3,000 years. Today, the festival is more about having family reunions, doing outdoor barbeques, moon gazing, folding lanterns and eating mooncakes. A dice game is also played by the southern Chinese, especially the Hokkiens, called Bo Bing, Poah-pia(n) or Poah-tiong-chhiu for the Chinese Filipinos. This year, Chinese Studies Program (CSP) invited the Ateneo community to come and celebrate the Moon Festival together.

Instead of six real dice, CSP introduced the use of the digital format. The game has 6 levels of prizes, and each participant was given one chance to roll the dice and win. CSP is happy to host more than a hundred twenty students and staff in the 8-hour dice game on September 17, the actual date of the thanksgiving lunar event. The HAPPY MOON FESTIVAL dice game venue was the CSP office at LH 200.

On 17 September 2024, Chinese communities around the world celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival. As part of our efforts in being a platform for culture sharing and understanding, the Chinese Studies Program and the Ricardo Leong Center for Chinese Studies sent mooncakes to the different departments, programs, and centers in the School of Social Sciences, and some of the offices and organizations that we are often partner or collaborate with.

On 19 September 2024, the Ateneo Chinese Studies Program and Ricardo Leong Center for Chinese Studies celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival with its annual dice game. In attendance were Mr. Ricardo and Dr. Rosita Leong, some of the chairs, directors and staff of the different departments, programs, and centers in the School of Social Sciences, and our very own AB Chinese Studies students and alumni. The Mid-Autumn celebration was an afternoon of food, games, and conversations between faculty, administrators, and students.

Lara Mendoza, PhD showed her work in a lecture-screening of The film, Usapang Hip-Hop: Ambagan sa Eksena at Kultura benchmarks the origin stories of select battle emcees whose fame and popularity reached dizzying heights in the FlipTop Battle Rap League, the most-watched battle league in the world since 2010.

The lecture offers reflections on the challenges posed and opportunities presented in conducting urban ethnography via research-filmmaking. The researcher-filmmaker provide further analysis of the intersections of local/global identity, class, genre and gender that emerge from an urban ethnography of Pinoy hip-hop.

Much of the local popular culture has been heavily influenced by the United States from theater to dance to literature and music. The underground hip-hop scene appropriates US hip-hop and becomes decidedly ‘Pinoy’. Such Filipino-ness in hip-hop can be seen through the specific lens of class, which conditions the particular sensibilities of humor that is manifest in the playful literariness of Pinoy hip-hop heads.

Submitteed by: Lara Katrina T. Mendoza, PhD

Ethnomusicologist and Assistant Professor

Culture and Development, Department of Development Studies

Writing Workshop: Southeast Asia as Musical Confluence

Lara Mendoza, PhD of Department of Development Studies participated in the Southeast Asia as Musical Confluence workshop which aimed to provide a supportive and creative environment to develop work in progress for publication. Meeting in Malaysia, which represents a meeting point between maritime and mainland SEA and has been animated by South Asian, East Asian, and post-/colonial tensions and mobilities captures the theme of SEA as Musical Confluence. Taking ‘confluence’ as a broad and theoretically unbound conceptual point of departure, the workshop invited work on:

Equity, diversity, and social justice for minority x indigenous x diaspora groups in SEA
Inter-/intra-SEA solidarities in music
Sustainability of SEA music cultures
Mobilities of SEA musicians and music
‘Western art music’ in SEA
Interregional tensions and connections between SEA and Europe / the Americas / Middle East / Africa / the Asia Pacific more broadly.

The workshop brought together emerging and more established scholars from both Southeast Asia and the UK to work across different epistemological communities and practices. Acknowledging both sameness and difference across music research communities in SEA and between SEA and the UK was intended to focus as much on research and writing. The writing workshop aimed to establish a community that values sharing knowledge and resources for the goal of epistemological justice. The workshop was a pilot programme conceived to develop into a multi-year project.

A star-studded AB Communication Alumni Homecoming

The Department of Communication held a successful alumni homecoming event for its AB Communication graduates last 13 July 2024 at The Arete Loft, Loyola Heights Campus. The well-attended event included alumni as far back as the Class of 1978, the first batch of the AB Communication program, and top media executives, journalists and graduates who excelled in other professions.

The gathering provided an opportunity to launch alumni initiatives of the department such as networking, alumni engagement in curriculum development and teaching, and fundraising efforts. The next alumni homecoming is scheduled in 2026 for the 60th anniversary of the Department.

Reading List

Chinese Studies Program director, Dr. Sidney Bata, was interviewed by Dapat Alam Mo!, a Philippine television news magazine show broadcasted by GTV and GMA Network. The segment was entitled Roujiamo. The 2,200-year-old Chinese burger is known as Roujiamo, it is a street food in Mainland China that has reached the shores of the Philippines and is now available in Binondo Chinatown. The feature came out late August.

This case study was submitted to the Regional Workshop “Traversing interconnected local-to-global action spheres to advance the Post-2030 agenda”, organized by IGES, START, Thammassat University, Asian Institute of Technology and National Institute of Technology, Nagpur.

On the Horizon

The Campus Mobility Forum In partnership with the School of Social Sciences (SOSS), Ateneo Center for Organization Research and Development (Ateneo CORD), Tagpuan Center for Dialogue Research and Collaboration (TAGPUAN), ARETE, Sandbox Programs and Residency, Department of Fine Arts and the Rizal Library invite you to the

IDEA BOX

for Participatory Future-making on Campus Mobility

In March 2024, the University President convened the Campus Mobility Forum which was tasked to formulate a vision and program of action for sustainable mobility on campus. While the main activities of the Campus Mobility Forum were concluded in July 2024, with the report scheduled for submission to the University President in September 2024, the Forum conveners are committed to continuously gather feedback, experiences, suggestions, and ideas from the community. This ongoing input will help us identify actionable steps and expand the dialogue on improving Ateneo de Manila Loyola Heights campus mobility.

This 3D Model of the Campus, used in the Campus Mobility Forum Future-Making Workshop, will be on display on the 5th Floor of the Rizal Library for the entire First Semester of SY2024-2025. As you look at the 3D model of the campus, you might have some pressing campus mobility-related concerns to pinpoint on the map or other thoughts to share. Some concern-coded objects were left around the model for you to move and place on the map.

This accompanying IDEA BOX is aimed at continuing the process in which ideas are collected and presented to campus mobility planners and implementers.

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