Rosario Cruz-Lucero delivers 2024 Fr Henry Lee Irwin SJ Professorial Chair Lecture on Philippine fiction in English

On Friday, 1 March 2024, fictionist, essayist, and literary critic Rosario Cruz-Lucero delivered the 2024 Fr Henry Lee Irwin SJ Professorial Chair Lecture. Entitled “Philippine Fiction in English and Its Intertextual Relations,” the lecture focused on the “relational nature of literature as a web of literary and nonliterary texts,” as illustrated by classic works by Filipino writers in English. 

Dr Jonathan Chua, Dean of the School of Humanities, introduced Dr Lucero to the audience composed of students of English literature and Filipino, professors, and writers. 

“She is someone I admire both professionally and morally,” he said. “If I were to make a list of people who have made a significant contribution to the study of Philippine literature, I think she should be there alongside Dr [Bienvenido] Lumbera, Nicanor Tiongson, Isagani Cruz, Resil Mojares, Doreen Fernandez, Soledad Reyes, and Fr [Miguel] Bernad SJ.” 

Dr Lucero focused on doing a close reading of one particular story: “Dead Stars” by Paz Marquez Benitez, the first Filipino short story in English, published in 1925. She delved into the context in which the story was written—the time of the American occupation, the author’s political loyalties, and a window into the Philippines as the Spanish years fade into obsolescence, anti-American sentiment grows stronger, and Filipinos find their way out of the darkness—before analyzing the text as an allegory of the historical state of affairs in the country at the time. 

The lecture ended with a Q&A portion from members of the audience. 

The Henry Lee Irwin SJ Professorial Chair was established in 1988 to honor the late Fr Irwin, a Jesuit educator who taught literature, philosophy, and rhetoric at Ateneo in the 1920s. Previous chair holders include Marjorie Evasco (1990), Gemino Abad (1993), Doreen Fernandez (2001), Bienvenido Lumbera (2005, 1st Sem), Queen Lee-Chua (2005, 2nd sem), and Jessica Zafra (2020).

Dr Lucero is the author of short stories and books on Filipino literature, including Herstory, La India, or Island of the Disappeared, Feast and Famine: Stories of Negros, and A Reader in Philippine Film: History and Criticism (edited with Dr Jonathan Chua and Rolando B Tolentino), among others.