The Riddle of the Fowl and the Eagle

Authors

  • Christian Jil Benitez Department of Filipino, Ateneo de Manila University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.18.2.2019.3705

Keywords:

eco-Gothic, Tropical Gothic, Philippines, Culture, Nature

Abstract

Alvin Yapan’s “The Riddle of the Fowl and the Eagle” (Filipino: “Ang Bugtong ng Manok at Agila”) teases at the boundaries between the cultural, the natural, and the supernatural, in order to foreground a contemporary Philippine conundrum that elucidates an ethical concern. The story questions what it is to be human, and what it means to be so in times that are rather inhumane. In the context of this text, this is simultaneously a concern with the meaning and value of animality. Through its rhythm, the text demonstrates a contemporary tropical consciousness that simultaneously navigates the individual and the collective so as to confront ecocritical anxieties and creating a story of the ecogothic. The translation of this text therefore opens this local tropical story to current discourses involved in analyzing global ecocritical predicaments.

Author Biography

Christian Jil Benitez, Department of Filipino, Ateneo de Manila University

Associate Professor Anita Lundberg is a cultural anthropologist whose research engages people and places of tropical Southeast Asia. She leads the research cluster Living Cities:Tropical Imaginaries. The cluster is concerned with the creative lived experiences of cities including cultural and natural landscapes, aesthetics, urban myths, flanerie, everyday life, liminal and cyber spaces. Anita’s previous projects include ethnographies of higher education in the Malay archipelago, the phenomenology of a Malay house and its garden of trees, and of a whaling hunting village in Indonesia. Anita is especially interested in developing a research-teaching-engagement nexus and her projects often engage students in international philanthropic projects, public talks and exhibitions. She has received awards for outstanding teaching, research supervision and innovative research and has held numerous fellowships: LIA TransOceanik (CNRS, Collége de France, JCU); The Cairns Institute (TCI); Post-Doctoral Fellow, Cambridge University, UK; Guest Researcher, Maison Asie-Pacifique, Université de Provence, France; Visiting Fellow, Institute of the Malay World and Civilization, National University Malaysia. She has also been an Anthropologist-in-Residence at Rimbun Dahan.

References

Buelva, A. J. (2016, Jan. 5). Purina’s “Puspins of Meownila” hightlights the good in local cats. MetroPets. Retrieved from https://www.metro-pets.com/news--features/category/puspin

del Principe, D. (2014). Introduction: The EcoGothic in the Long Nineteenth Century, Gothic Studies 16(1), 1-8.

Diksiyunaryo-Tesauro Pilipino-Ingles. (1972). Quezon City, Philippines: Manlapaz Publishing, Co.

"Kalaw, A. G. (2007, Aug. 18). ‘Askal’ is out, ‘aspin’ is in. The Philippine Star. Retrieved from https://www.philstar.com/lifestyle/modern-living/2007/08/18/13642/lifestyle#wtSY5opkket3Lpgh.99

Miller, F.P., McBrewster, J., & Vandome, A.F. (Eds.) (2009). Philippine Mythology. Riga: Alphascript Publishing.

Yapan, A. B. (2016). Sangkatauhan at Sangkahayupan. Quezon City, Philippines: Ateneo de Manila University Press.

Tropical Gothic: Literary and Creative Works

Downloads

Published

2019-10-18

How to Cite

Benitez, C. J. (2019). The Riddle of the Fowl and the Eagle. ETropic: Electronic Journal of Studies in the Tropics, 18(2). https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.18.2.2019.3705

Issue

Vol. 18 No. 2 (2019): Special Issue: Tropical Gothic Literary and Creative Works

Section

Short Story

License

Authors who submit articles to this journal agree to the following terms:

1. Authors are responsible for ensuring that any material that has influenced the research or writing has been properly cited and credited both in the text and in the Reference List (Bibliography). Contributors are responsible for gaining copyright clearance on figures, photographs or lengthy quotes used in their manuscript that have been published elsewhere.

2. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) License that allows others to share and adapt the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

3. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository, or publish it in a book), with proper acknowledgement of the work's initial publication in this journal.

4. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (see The Effect of Open Access or The Open Access Citation Advantage). Where authors include such a work in an institutional repository or on their website (i.e., a copy of a work which has been published in eTropic, or a pre-print or post-print version of that work), we request that they include a statement that acknowledges the eTropic publication including the name of the journal, the volume number and a web-link to the journal item.

5. Authors should be aware that the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) License permits readers to share (copy and redistribute the work in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the work) for any purpose, even commercially, provided they also give appropriate credit to the work, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. They may do these things in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests you or your publisher endorses their use.