September 30, 2019
Kritika Kultura, the international refereed journal of language, literary, and cultural studies of the Department of English, Ateneo de Manila University—in cooperation with CHED-Salikha's Ethnographies of Philippine Auditory Popular Cultures (EPAPC)—will host a lecture by Lara Katrina T. Mendoza and a screening of her documentary Usapang Hip-Hop: Ambagan sa Eksena at Kultura. The event is on Oct. 8, 2019, from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m., at Leong Hall Auditorium (Ateneo de Manila University). The event—which is part of TALAB 2019 (Talakayang Alay sa Bayan, Ateneo@160: Agenda for Hope)—is open to the public.
About the event
Usapang Hip-Hop is an initial depiction of hip-hop’s “slice of life” (Yuson, June 2019), where artists explain how they release aggression, boast of rap skills, and have a laugh trip cum drink fest after all have been said and done. At the end of the day, we are all the same, eking out a living, busting our asses to bring food to the table, and hip-hop is just the coolest way to do all these and still be true to who we are. In this event, Lara Katrina T. Mendoza will talk about her vision as a director, the editorial choices she and her team had to constantly negotiate and maneuver, and the ethnographic research she did covering sixteen months until the completion of the documentary. The talk will be followed by a screening of Usapang Hip-Hop.
About the lecturer
Lara Katrina T. Mendoza teaches at the Ateneo de Manila University, where for the past 23 years she has been handling courses on research writing, essay writing, poetry, fiction, and drama.She earned her AB Humanities and MA Literature degrees from Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines. She earned an advanced Master’s degree (MaNaMa) in Cognitive and Functional Linguistics at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Catholic University of Louvain) in Belgium. She is currently finishing her PhD in Music from the University of the Philippines in Diliman. She was a Fellow at the Center for Popular Culture Studies at Bowling Green University in Ohio, USA from 2016-2017.Mendoza also studied at the UP College of Music in the Bachelor of Music program for Choral Conducting from 2001-2003. She has been a member of the Ateneo College Glee Club, the Brussels Madrigal Singers, and Novo Concertante Manila, also serving as Musical Director of several parish choirs and music groups.Her research interests in the last several years have centered on popular music in the Philippines from the 1990s to the present, especially the alternative/indie band scenes, bar events and beer gardens in Manila, and recently, hip-hop events such as rap performances and battle rap.
About Kritika Kultura
Kritika Kultura is acknowledged by a host of Asian and Asian American Studies libraries and scholarly networks, and indexed in the MLA International Bibliography, Arts and Humanities Citation Index (Clarivate), Scopus, EBSCO, the Directory of Open Access Journals, and the International Consortium of Critical Theory Programs (ICCTP). For inquiries about submission guidelines and future events, visit http://journals.ateneo.edu/ojs/kk or email kk.soh@ateneo.edu.
