Events: Kritika Kultura Lecture Series presents Daniel F. Doeppers
Kritika Kultura, the international refereed journal of language, literary, and cultural studies of the Department of English, Ateneo de Manila University will host a lecture by Daniel F. Doeppers titled “Feeding Manila in Peace and War, 1850-1945,” on Jan. 26, 2017, from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m., at Escaler Hall, Ateneo de Manila University. This event is co-organized by the Ateneo de Manila University Press. The lecture is open to the public. Doeppers’s abstract reads: “Megacities loom large in any account of the planet's human population, and also in thoughtful assessments of the growing difficulties of feeding, providing potable water, and effective disease prevention to slum populations. Yet research on these subjects in Southeast Asian megacities in general and Manila in particular, has lagged. The book Feeding Manila in Peace and War, 1850-1945 (Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2016), seeks to open up and bring attention to this subject—collectively the operation of the city's provisioning system developed over numerous generations. It demonstrates the dynamic range and magnitude of provisionment and that much of this was internal to the country—internal while the more noticed portions of the economy involved exporting commodities according to the commercial demand of more developed countries. Each segment of the food supply system had its own peculiarities and challenges—for example the problems of coping with a rice supply irregularly reduced by droughts and lethal epizootic diseases (notably rinderpest). Further, major provincial commitments to food production for the city often involved massive environmental alterations such as the removal of millions of nipa palms for the dramatic expansion of fish ponds. And finally, the provisioning system also centrally involved livelihood (trabajo) for enormous numbers of individuals and families in the participating provinces and in the megacity itself. The several provinces created and sustained the city by feedingit while demand from the city altered provincial economies.” Dr. Daniel F. Doeppers, emeritus professor at the University of Wisconsin, began what has become a lifetime scholarly research engagement with the Philippines in the late 1960s. Initially concerned to compare provincial cities, he proceeded to develop a deep interest in the social and economic processes that have shaped the dynamic society and geography of metropolitan Manila over the last 150 years. One of the critical megacities of Southeast Asia, Manila became a rewarding choice. In three books and and a number of essays, Doeppers has explored these themes in an economic and social dissection of the city and its inhabitants over several generations. This work culminates in his new book Feeding Manila in Peace and War, 1850-1945 (Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2016). Kritika Kultura is acknowledged by a host of Asian and Asian American Studies libraries and scholarly networks, and indexed in the MLA International Bibliography, Thomson Reuters (ISI), Scopus, EBSCO, and the Directory of Open Access Journals. For inquiries about submission guidelines and future events, visit http://journals.ateneo.edu/ojs/kk or email kk.soh@ateneo.edu |
