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  4. Death, Event, and a Deconstruction of Gihapon in "Flores ni Maria Santisima"

Death, Event, and a Deconstruction of Gihapon in "Flores ni Maria Santisima"

Cyril Belvis: De La Salle Araneta University

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/

Abstract

http://dx.doi.org/10.13185/KK2013.02002

This paper proposes a deconstructive reading of Flores ni Maria Santisima, a Hiligaynon novena written by Padre Raymundo Lozano and printed in 1867. Set against the economic bustle of nineteenth-century Iloilo after it opened port to foreign trade,the novena demonstrates a homological relationship between capitalism and the practice of spiritual accumulation in the Flores. Nevertheless,teasing out the liminality of this text undermines its self-assurance as a monologic triumph of signification.A recurrent word in the novena, gihapon (always) plays an important transactional role in the promise of a happy death.  As an incalculable event which subverts anticipation, death is a call towards faith without the consolation of certainty. The alterity of death beckons us to respond with Derrida’s perhaps, a trace of gihaponrevealed in the three stories from pananglit(hagiographical narrative): the deathbed experience of St John of God, the Emmaus-like encounter of two priests, and the acquittal of a convicted robber.

Keywords

Novena, event, trace, deconstruction

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Kritika Kultura
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Jan Baetens
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Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven (Belgium)

Joel David
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Inha University (South Korea)

Michael Denning
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Department of English
Yale University (US)

Faruk
Faculty of Cultural Sciences
Universitas Gadjah Mada (Indonesia)

Regenia Gagnier
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Leela Gandhi
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Inderpal Grewal
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Peter Horn
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University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)

Anette Horn
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David Lloyd
Distinguished Professor of English
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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
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Vaidehi Ramanathan
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Temario Rivera
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Department of Political Science
University of the Philippines

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

Neferti X.M. Tadiar
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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)

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