Announcements  T 2/19 – Short paper #2 Due  T 2/12 Poeta en San Francisco  Michael Galvan  Christina Alvarez  Th 2/14 Feminism without Borders  Crystal Hsu  Jillian Robards

“poetry is not a luxury” the poet and warrior

living in a time of war  “Babae is, in her view, the name of a prison made up of de- kahong paglalarawan, or confining portraits” (373)  Babae = wife or mather  Babae= nurse, hostess, prostitute, mail-order bride  “To ask, ‘The Filipina woman: who and what is she?” in a radical way is to see her status, and the state of affairs in which she holds that status, as in a state of emergency – indeed, a state of war. It is to inquire into the ways that being a Filipina means living in a state of war” (375)  Interrogation of identity  Babae as field, weapons, and means of battle

IDENTITY AS COMMODITY VS IDENTITY AS DREAM & ACTION (377)

babae as warrior  “The task of feminist writers, artists, and critics is therefore to reinvent experiential strategies for re-creating the realities we inherit and take as ‘givens.’ We can reinvent if we recognize the dimensions of our experiential practices that are not already subsumed by capitalist structures” (382)  “If we look at art less in terms of representation than as practices of mediation, we can recognize the ways in which specific works might begin to alter our habitual forms of regard and release other possibilities” (382)  “power over life” versus “power for life” (383)  fantasies versus dreams & actions

Audre Lorde  Why is poetry not a luxury? What power does poetry allow women to access?  Why does Lorde claim we were never meant to survive? How does this relate to Tadiar’s observation that Filipinas live in a time of war?  What does it mean that master’s tools will never dismantle master’s house? Is Tadiar guilty of using master’s tools? What of Rosca?