Discursive Formations and the Ambivalent Nation in Gina Apostol's "The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata"

Jillian Joyce  Ong Tan

doi:http://doi.org/

Abstract

Gina Apostol’s The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata brings to the fore a multi- contested textual space that not only politicizes the act of reading, but more importantly, engages in a form of nation-building or imagining. The paper will demonstrate through a two-prong analysis of form and content that this novel utilizes postmodern modes of articulation such as parody, intertextuality, and a non-sequential temporal narrative in order to examine knowledge-productions, politics of representation, agency, and nationhood that have become immanent and critical in the emerging and rapidly-developing field of theoretical discourse that seeks to illuminate Philippine postcoloniality. It will also be argued that postmodern forms, which are premised upon diffusion, multiplicity, and the ambivalence of meaning render the notion of the Philippines to be equally ambivalent and diffused. Whether such re-imagining or re-configuring of the nation is advantageous or not is left for the reader to decide. The critical works of Linda Hutcheon, Homi Bhabha, and Benita Parry will serve as departure points for the analysis.

Keywords

historiographic metafiction, narrative, paratexts, parody, performative, Rizal

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Kritika Kultura
Department of English
School of Humanities
Ateneo de Manila University

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International Board of Editors

Jan Baetens
Professor
Faculty of Arts
Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven (Belgium)

Joel David
Professor of Cultural Studies
Inha University (South Korea)

Michael Denning
Professor of American Studies and English
Department of English
Yale University (US)

Faruk
Faculty of Cultural Sciences
Universitas Gadjah Mada (Indonesia)

Regenia Gagnier
Professor of English
University of Exeter (UK)

Leela Gandhi
John Hawkes Professor of the Humanities and English
Brown University (US)

Inderpal Grewal
Professor of Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies
Professor of South Asian Studies, Ethnicity, Race and Migration Studies
Yale University (US)

Peter Horn
Professor Emeritus and Honorary Lifetime Fellow
University of Cape Town (South Africa)
Honorary Professor and Research Associate in German Studies
University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)

Anette Horn
Professor of German Studies
University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)

David Lloyd
Distinguished Professor of English
University of California, Riverside (US)

Bienvenido Lumbera
National Artist for Literature
Professor Emeritus
University of the Philippines

Rajeev S. Patke
Director of the Division of Humanities
Professor of Humanities
Yale NUS College (Singapore)

Vicente L. Rafael
Giovanni and Amne Costigan Endowed Professor of History
University of Washington (US)

Vaidehi Ramanathan
Department of Linguistics
University of California, Davis (US)

Temario Rivera
Professorial Lecturer
Department of Political Science
University of the Philippines

E. San Juan, Jr.
Philippines Studies Center (US)

Neferti X.M. Tadiar
Professor of Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies
Barnard College (US)
Director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race
Columbia University (US)

Antony Tatlow
Honorary Professor of Drama
Trinity College Dublin (Ireland)

Discursive Formations and the Ambivalent Nation in Gina Apostol's "The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata"

Jillian Joyce Ong Tan: Columbia University

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