Lumbay: Homesickness among Filipino Ilustrados (Dr. Rhodalyn C. Wani-Obias)

Join us for the next session of the DAMÁ Brownbag Sessions.
09 October 2025 (Thursday) | 13:00-15:00
Main TV Studio, G/F Plaridel Hall
College of Media and Communication
University of the Philippines Diliman
Admission is free and everyone is welcome.
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Lumbay: Homesickness among Filipino Ilustrados
This talk focuses on the emotion, homesickness, and argues that the struggle for reforms was also very much a struggle of how Filipino propagandists learned to cope with their feelings while in exile. Heirs of liberal ideas that encouraged the enlightened man to be independent, unfettered, and cosmopolitan, the propagandists had to control their homesickness in manners expected from mature and modern men. On the other hand, their work in propaganda was propelled primarily by an attachment to the homeland. In looking at this emotion, I also demonstrate the change in the migrants’ gaze as it slowly began to include the larger entity of the nation in the late nineteenth century.
By interrogating homesickness, it is hoped that an understanding of how the propagandists felt about their migration and of how they responded will surface while a deeper appreciation of the emotional complexity inherent in human experiences will emerge.
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Rhodalyn C. Wani-Obias, Assistant Professor of History at UP Diliman, specializes in 19th-century Philippines, the Philippine Propaganda Movement, history of emotions, and women’s history. She also serves as CSSP External Affairs Officer and the Chair of the CSSP Ethics Review Board.
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The DAMÁ Brownbag Sessions is a project by the UP Department of History, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy and is funded by the UPD Office for Initiatives in Culture and the Arts (UP Diliman OICA) through the UPD-OICA Grants.