Archipelagothic: Studies in the Philippine Gothic

Archipelagothic: Studies in the Philippine Gothic is a volume that brings together essays that examine the place of the gothic in Philippine culture, which include Philippine literature in English, Tagalog literature, regional literature, cinema, TV, and comics and graphic novels. These essays collectively suggest that the Philippines’ longue durée of multiple colonialisms, archipelagic configuration, uneven effects and experiences of globalization, and various regional cultures have variously and uniquely transformed the idea of the gothic. The volume thus also serves as diverse theoretical elaborations of the concept of archipelagothic, designating a descriptive term that refers to the gothic multiplicity in Philippine culture as well as an approach to reading gothic texts that emphasize relationality, decoloniality, and multiplicity.

In the collection, Jeremy De Chavez’s introductory essay offers a brief synoptic history of the gothic in the Philippines and a theoretical elaboration of the archipelagothic. Thomas Leonard Shaw’s essay examines the gothic in Philippine Anglophone writing by looking at three thematic categories—the tropical gothic, and the urban gothic—across a selection of texts spanning from the 1940s to the more contemporary 2010s. Edgar Calabia Samar’s essay examines contemporary Tagalog literature’s engagement with the gothic. Genevieve Asenjo’s essay examines literary texts from the Visayan region of the Philippines that perform the archipelagic tropes of the Philippine gothic, which she argues is rooted in its enduring shamanistic tradition and verbal arts of epic chanting and storytelling.

Louie Jon Sanchez’s essay examines how in the past 70 years of Philippine TV broadcasting gothic tendencies may be observed in two popular televisual formats: the documentary gothic in episodes of news and current affairs formats and the melodramatic gothic in representational drama formats like the occasional drama anthology/movies for TV and the soap opera, locally called the “teleserye” (television series). Rose Arong examines the formal elements of the komiks and graphic novel genre as a way to discuss the thematic variations of the gothic, which are products of the artistic negotiation of foreign influence and local adaptation. The volume includes a helpful glossary of terms prepared by Michael Justine Sales.

Archipelagothic: Studies in the Philippine Gothic is an edited collection that brings together essays that examine the place of the gothic in Philippine culture. This groundbreaking volume, the first book on the topic, is appropriately comprehensive, covering a range of genres, historical periods, regions, and languages. While the essays in this collection do not come to a consensus regarding the Gothic, they all refract the meaning of the term to expand its utility so that it may properly speak to the Philippines’ longue durée of multiple colonialisms and various regional cultures that crowd under the umbrella of the nation. The various permutations of the gothic within the various regional cultures, languages, colonial histories, and uneven experiences of globalization is what the editor of this volume refers to as “archipelagothic.” The collection includes essays on the gothic in Philippine literature in English, Tagalog literature, regional literature, cinema, TV, and comics and graphic novels.