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Papers by Hidde van der Wall

The Philosophical Journal of Conflict and Violence

This article discusses how Philippine writer Nick Joaquin applied the ideas of Oswald Spengler in... more This article discusses how Philippine writer Nick Joaquin applied the ideas of Oswald Spengler in his historiography, notably the collection Culture and History (1988), his contribution to the post-authoritarian renegotiation of a national history fraught with colonial conflict and loss. This article argues that Joaquin adapted Spengler’s ideas, proposing the presence of a “Faustian” Filipino soul formed during the Spanish-colonial period, to a contradictory effect. It allowed him to assert a national identity that challenged the dichotomous ways in which Philippine history was conventionally conceived, but it also reintroduced Eurocentric and homogenizing schemes, reinforcing existing hegemonies in the postcolony.

The Philosophical Journal of Conflict and Violence, 2022

This article discusses how Philippine writer Nick Joaquin applied the ideas of Oswald Spengler in... more This article discusses how Philippine writer Nick Joaquin applied the ideas of Oswald Spengler in his historiography, notably the collection Culture and History (1988), his contribution to the postauthoritarian renegotiation of a national history fraught with colonial conflict and loss. This article argues that Joaquin adapted Spengler's ideas, proposing the presence of a "Faustian" Filipino soul formed during the Spanish-colonial period, to a contradictory effect. It allowed him to assert a national identity that challenged the dichotomous ways in which Philippine history was conventionally conceived, but it also reintroduced Eurocentric and homogenizing schemes, reinforcing existing hegemonies in the postcolony.

$Research paper thumbnail of The City as Nation: Nick Joaquin\u27s Manila, My Manila as Nationalist History$

This article discusses Nick Joaquin’s Manila, My Manila (1989/1999) as an example of how his hist... more This article discusses Nick Joaquin’s Manila, My Manila (1989/1999) as an example of how his historiographical work tends to be more conventional in terms of the nationalism that dominates Philippine historiography, and has a more complex relationship to this discourse than existing analyses tend to suggest. While his veneration of the Spanish colonial period is indeed unconventional, his book leaves the main problem of nationalist discourse untouched as it maintains the essentialist notion of an identifiable national community projected backwards into time. The book fails to capitalize on the potential for disrupting national paradigms that city narratives offer. Rather than breaking up narratives of nationalism, it creates a new one, homogenizing Philippine history around a linear history of the city. It imagines Manila as the continuously endangered seed of the nation, which miraculously overcomes the multitude of threats thrown its way. While the narrative glosses over the inher...

Perspectives in the Arts and Humanities Asia, 2016

410 Lim’s division did not participate in the later battles in Bataan and was not part of the Bat... more 410 Lim’s division did not participate in the later battles in Bataan and was not part of the Bataan Death March. The Japanese however brought him to Camp O’Donnell in Capas, Tarlac. In July 1942 the new colonizers released him from the camp, after which he went to a hospital to recuperate. He had plans then of starting an underground resistance movement against the Japanese. When he left the hospital he tried to escape in a batel, a large sailboat; unfortunately, the Japanese found him and brought him to Fort Santiago in Manila. He was believed to have been executed later by the Japanese. His remains were never identified, and the day of his death was never ascertained (264–65). Although Lim never attained his ambition to put his mark on the military history of the Philippines, his death at the hands of the Japanese made him a hero worthy to be memorialized. Meixsel states in the introductory part of the book that his goal in writing Frustrated Ambition was to provide a new perspec...

Perspectives in the Arts and Humanities Asia

Kritika Kultura, 2019

This article discusses Nick Joaquin's Manila, My Manila (1989/1999) as an example of how his hist... more This article discusses Nick Joaquin's Manila, My Manila (1989/1999) as an example of how his historiographical work tends to be more conventional in terms of the nationalism that dominates Philippine historiography, and has a more complex relationship to this discourse than existing analyses tend to suggest. While his veneration of the Spanish colonial period is indeed unconventional, his book leaves the main problem of nationalist discourse untouched as it maintains the essentialist notion of an identifiable national community projected backwards into time. The book fails to capitalize on the potential for disrupting national paradigms that city narratives offer. Rather than breaking up narratives of nationalism, it creates a new one, homogenizing Philippine history around a linear history of the city. It imagines Manila as the continuously endangered seed of the nation, which miraculously overcomes the multitude of threats thrown its way. While the narrative glosses over the inherent diversity of the nation, it also exposes an essentialist, teleological, and metaphysical historical vision. The ambiguity of Joaquin's vision, and of his relationship with the tradition of Philippine historiography, then, lies in his outward rejection of the essentialism inherent to nationalist notions on the one hand, and the determinism governing his homogenizing narratives on the other.

Abstract The aim of this thesis is to contribute to a differentiated reassessment of the cultur... more Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to contribute to a differentiated reassessment of the

cultural history of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), which has

hitherto been hampered by critical approaches which have the objective of

denouncing rather than understanding East German culture and society.

Approaches such as these rely on schematic black-and-white oppositions, e.g.

the dichotomy of conformity and dissidence, and present the East German

cultural public spheres in a top-down way as a closed space in which a

supposedly monolithic and deceitful Party ideology dictates what can be said

or written.

In order to reconceptualise these oversimplifying models, this thesis

analyses public discourses from below, focusing on case studies of three public

intellectuals with very distinct profiles: Wieland Herzfelde (1896-1988), Erich

Loest (1926-2013), and Peter Hacks (1928-2003). Based on published as well

as archival sources, this thesis examines their contributions to the plurality of

public discourses in East Germany, concentrating on the 1950s as the most

heavily contested decade of German division and the Cold War, both of which

put great pressure on intellectuals. Whereas research has traditionally regarded

these three intellectuals as having either a dissident or a conformist profile, this

thesis argues that their attitudes were too ambiguous and the dilemmas they

faced too complex to be reduced to such a clear-cut, schematic template.

Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints, 2016

Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 2010

Book Reviews by Hidde van der Wall