Geronimo Cristobal

Category: Reviews

  • Book Review of Enigmatic Objects for Southeast Asian Studies journal

    —

    by

    admin
    in

    In Enigmatic Objects: Notes Towards a History of the Museum in the Philippines (Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2023), National Artist for Literature Resil B. Mojares offers a thoughtful and absorbing meditation on the origins of collecting in the Philippines. Organized like a cabinet of curiosities, the book assembles stories of portraits, phrenological skulls, coconut-shell…

  • Lillie P. Bliss and the Birth of the Modern

    —

    by

    admin
    in ,

    Through March 29MoMA, Floor 2, The Paul J. Sachs Galleries The Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition Lillie P. Bliss and the Birth of the Modern offers a long-overdue reconsideration of a figure whose impact on the institution—and on modern art in America—cannot be overstated. Much like the uprooted pine tree that symbolized the Armory Show, Bliss stood…

  • Idolizing Mary: Maya-Catholic Icons in Yucatán, Mexico (Amara Solari, 2022)

    —

    by

    admin
    in

    Amara Solari’s Idolizing Mary: Maya-Catholic Icons in Yucatán, Mexico examines the role of Marian devotion in colonial Yucatán, focusing on the Virgin of Itzmal. The book explores how Maya communities integrated Catholic iconography into their existing religious traditions, aligning with precontact notions of sacrality, ritual purity, and divine intercession. The study centers on the 1648…

  • The Soldier’s Reward by Jennifer Ngaire Heuer

    —

    by

    admin
    in ,

    I just made a purchase request from the library for The Soldier’s Reward, drawn in by Jennifer Ngaire Heuer’s ability to unearth the deeply personal dimensions of a quarter-century of conflict. She reveals how war’s chaos was not just a matter of battlefield tactics but something that profoundly shaped the quiet rhythms of family life…

  • Lost and Found (1996) – Ode to Love and Loss

    —

    by

    admin
    in ,

    Lee Chi-Ngai’s Lost and Found (1996) is one of those delicate little films that dares to press on your heartstrings and doesn’t let go. It knows what it’s about—love, loss, and the refusal to surrender to despair—and delivers its message with an earnestness so determined that it’s almost disarming. Of course, you know where it’s…

  • Filipino Muslim Perceptions of Their History and Culture as Seen Through Indigenous Written Sources

    —

    by

    admin
    in ,

    Samuel K. Tan’s Filipino Muslim Perceptions of Their History and Culture as Seen Through Indigenous Written Sources examines the historiographical landscape of Filipino Muslim history, emphasizing indigenous written sources over colonial records. Tan highlights the limitations of oral traditions, which vary across ethnic groups, and critiques colonial sources for their biased perspectives that framed Muslims…

  • Pearl of the Orient: The Philippines in Shell (2007)

    —

    by

    admin
    in ,

    Cariño, José Maria A., and Sonia P. Ner. Pearl of the Orient: The Philippines in a Shell. Manila: Arts Mundi Philippinae, 2007. In Pearl of the Orient: The Philippines in Shell (2007), co-authors Sonia P. Ner and Jose Maria “Jomari” Cariño bring to light an overlooked medium of 19th-century Philippine art—paintings and carvings on Pinctada…

  • Poseidon’s poisoned gifts

    —

    by

    admin
    in , ,

    On John Steinbeck’s The Pearl and the bizarre Pearl of Lao Tzu By the time John Steinbeck published The Pearl in 1947, his reputation as a chronicler of the dispossessed was well established. The Grapes of Wrath had cemented his place as a writer who could capture the harsh realities of those on the fringes…

  • Knowledge Lost: A New View of Early Modern Intellectual History

    —

    by

    admin
    in ,

    Martin Mulsow’s Knowledge Lost: A New View of Early Modern Intellectual History offers a refreshing perspective on the era’s intellectual landscape, making it a compelling read for those interested in early modern studies. Unlike the often tedious task of writing reviews, the reviewer found this book both engaging and informative, a testament to its significance…

  • Forgiveness Work (Arzoo Osanloo, 2020)

    —

    by

    admin
    in ,

    Photo taken from medieval manuscript by Qotbeddin Shirazi (1236–1311), a Persian Astronomer. The image depicts an epicyclic planetary model. In Forgiveness Work, Arzoo Osanloo offers ways of understanding an Islamic notion of justice by looking closer at experiences and infrastructures that illustrate the centrality of compassion and mercy in Iranian criminal law. She argues how the compulsion to…

  • Rodel Tapaya/ Can’t See the Forest for the Trees

    —

    by

    admin
    in , ,

    Rodel Tapaya Can’t See the Forest for the TreesJack Bell Gallery (London, UK)May 2023 In this series of portraits filled with lush flora and fauna, Rodel Tapaya signals an intellectual turn to the ecocentric, spotlighting nature as the primary actor in the folklore that fuels his artistic imagination. The composition recalls a peculiar Southeast Asian artifact:…

  • What is Islam (Shahab Ahmed, 2015)

    —

    by

    admin
    in ,

    First page of the manuscript of Hafez Shirazi’s Divan. Preserved in the Treasury of the National Library and Museum of Malek, Tehran Using encyclopedic historical and theological data, Shahad Ahmed criticizes the unsatisfactory ways Islam has been taken as an object and category, and conceptualized in popular and academic discourses. According to Ahmed, a valid…

  • Inscrutable Surface

    —

    by

    admin
    in ,

    Java – Topeng: Ken Angrok.: Wayang Topeng play “Ken Angrok” performance at Java Institute, Jogjakarta [Yogyakarta]. Photo: NYPL/ Claire Holt Vivian Huang’s first book, Surface Relations: Queer Forms of Asian American Inscrutability, examines the ways in which Asian and Asian American artists have advantageously reconfigured the erstwhile detrimental stereotype of inscrutability as “a dynamic antiracist,…

  • Questioning Secularism (Agrama, 2011)

    —

    by

    admin
    in

    Hussein Ali Agrama’s Questioning Secularism distills the layers of the modern nation and exposes the entrenchment of a ‘deep-state’ that works for a political elite. He describes how revolutionary legitimacy is often undermined in favor of a liberal secularism, which is both the mode in which the state wields power over belligerent citizens and the…

  • Gender / Sexuality / Theory of Power

    —

    by

    admin
    in ,

    Harry Styles at the Grammy Awards in 2021. Boas are a fashion must-have at Styles’ concerts.(Jordan Strauss / Invision / AP) In “Bodies with New Organs” Jasbir Puar examines the neoliberal appropriation of the trans body to reconstitute the pool of able bodied individuals for economic productivity and the development of the national economy. According…

  • Queer Companions (Omar Kasmani, 2022)

    —

    by

    admin
    in ,

    Religion, Public Intimacy, and Saintly Affects in Pakistan An illustration of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar’s shrine in Sehwan as it was in mid-1800s. Photo: Sindh Culture Department Lauren Berlant writes that unexpected consequences of communicating with meager signs and gestures are the “secret epitaphs” of intimacy. “Often brief and eloquent,” intimate situations also convey an aspiration…

  • Knot of the Soul (Stefania Pandolfo, 2018)

    —

    by

    admin
    in ,

    Madness, Psychoanalysis, Islam The 72nd chapter of the Qur’an entitled Al-Jinn (The Jinn), as well as the heading and introductory bismillah of the next chapter entitled al-Muzzammil (The Enshrouded One). In Knot of the Soul, Pandolfo ties together seemingly disparate areas of study such as madness and cartography to address, among many others, the compatibility of modern psychology and Islamic eschatology. Towards this end, she…

  • Jinnealogy (Anand Vivek Taneja, 2017)

    —

    by

    admin
    in ,

    Time, Islam, and Ecological Thought in the Medieval Ruins of Delhi Taneja’s plaiting of themes in contemporary Indian politics and vestiges of unsanctioned Islamic practice reveal the multi-layered undercurrents of Islamic sovereignty that shape the present. Her insights into secularism, political ecology, ethics, and religiosity afford us a deeper look of Islamic ethics and its…

  • Manta Ray (dir. Phuttiphong Aroonpheng, 2018)

    —

    by

    admin
    in ,

    There is a stealthiness and a dreaminess in Manta Ray (2018), the first feature film by cinematographer Phuttiphong Aroonpheng who was born in 1976. The film is one of the first fiction films to evoke the crisis of the Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim minority in western Burma (Myanmar), from the perspective of Thailand, the land…

  • Protected: David Medala/ Parables of Friendship

    —

    by

    admin
    in , ,

    There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

  • The Age of Barbarians

    —

    by

    admin
    in ,

    The Age of Enlightenment is commonly thought to precede the rapid development of history as an academic discipline. An awareness of history and the perceived continuity of peoples and nations caused a rapid evolution in the field of applied arts and architecture. This can be observed in the revival of historical styles in painting as…

  • The Ignorant Schulmeister and his Armchair Revolution

    —

    by

    admin
    in , ,

    This essay is a preliminary examination of the artistic pedagogy of Josef Albers mainly using his encounter with Constancio Bernardo, his student at Yale School of Art in the 1950s, as a case study. After being mentored by Albers, Bernardo made the earliest examples of modern abstract painting in Southeast Asia. Drawing from Jacques Ranciere’s…

  • Blues Legacies and Black Feminism by Angela Davis

    —

    by

    admin
    in , ,

    Covering subjects outside the mainstream of early twentieth century swing and jazz music, the blues point to more than one kind of voice involved in the act of telling. Angela Davis suggests a multiplicity and fluidity prohibited by the homogenizing structuring of narration and community in mainstream music.[1] Through her transcription and analysis of the…

  • “Jennifer’s Butt” by Frances Negrón-Muntaner

    —

    by

    admin
    in , ,

    Frances Negrón-Muntaner talks about the way both Selena’s and Jennifer Lopez’s rear ends are viewed by fellow audiences under circumstances that feared the racialized body before popular culture decided that a massive gluteus was cinematically desirable.[1] Latin-American teenagers perceived the uncanny doubling of Selena and Jennifer Lopez as tethered to their somatic features; a unique…

  • Protected: Emotions adrift and slaughtered

    Protected: Emotions adrift and slaughtered

    —

    by

    admin
    in ,

    There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

  • Resistant Spectatorship

    Resistant Spectatorship

    —

    by

    admin
    in , ,

    Manthia Diawara’s critique of black characters in D.W. Griffin’s Birth of a Nation and Eddie Murphy’s cop movies serves as a template for further examination on the racist depictions in mass media of the African-American male. In considering some Hollywood productions, Diawara makes a case for the problematic ‘identification’ between the black (male) spectator and…

  • Indonesian Palaeography, A History of writing in Indonesia from the beginnings to 1500 AD

    Indonesian Palaeography, A History of writing in Indonesia from the beginnings to 1500 AD

    —

    by

    admin
    in

    In ’60s and ’70s, several orientalists, mostly from Germanic countries, have undertaken, led by the senior leadership of Professor B. Spuler under the auspices of editors at Brill, the vast project of writing a “manual”. The result is the publication of Handbuch der Orienialislik, which in several issues has taken stock of Western knowledge about…

  • Sudden Death (Alvaro Enrigue, 2016)

    Sudden Death (Alvaro Enrigue, 2016)

    —

    by

    admin
    in , , ,

    A duel between Caravaggio and Quevedo, or how a tennis match connects worlds. Since when did people actually play tennis? And since when have tennis shoes been around, today the most socially acceptable and most widespread footwear worldwide? And how did you make the balls? The Mexican author Álvaro Enrigue, born 1969 in Guadalajara, México,…

  • Protected: Origins of the US-Educated Filipino as Modernist Gadfly (1903-1946) 

    —

    by

    admin
    in ,

    There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

  • The Myth of a Degree Zero Moment

    —

    by

    admin
    in , , ,

    Degree Zero at MoMA provides counterpoints to the understanding of drawing’s role in post-war art. Gathering 75 works, made between 1948 and 1966, from Louise Bourgeois, Yayoi Kusama, Henri Matisse, Jackson Pollock, Alfredo Volpi, and many others, as well as recent acquisitions by artists such as Uche Okeke, the exhibition freshly examines the commonly perceived…