LCSP and Exploding Galaxies lecture tackles Linda Ty-Casper, historical fiction, and women writers in the Philippines

On 21 March 2025, Ateneo's Literary and Cultural Studies Program (LCSP), in partnership with Exploding Galaxies, hosted a lecture by Dr Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo and Mara Coson on Linda Ty-Casper, historical novel, and women writers in the Philippines. The lecture was the second in the LCSP x Exploding Galaxies: States of the Filipino Novel lecture series and was done in coordination with Kritika Kultura and PLUME.

Dr Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo is a fictionist, critic, and pioneering writer of creative nonfiction. She currently serves as Director of the University of Santo Tomas (UST) Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies and is Professor Emeritus of English & Comparative Literature at the University of the Philippines Diliman. Like Linda Ty-Casper, Dr Pantoja-Hidalgo is a recipient of the S.E.A. Write Award for Literature for 2020, having received the award from the  Royal Family of Thailand in 2023.

Mara Coson is a novelist and publisher. She is the founder of Exploding Galaxies, a press focused on publishing out-of-print Filipino fiction. She also founded the Manila Review, a non-profit review publication that aims to map the ideas that shape public discussion in the Philippines.

Dr Pantoja-Hidalgo began her lecture by recounting the history of Philippine literature in English, and eventually, how historical fiction in English developed in the country.

From this, she goes into the question of what exactly makes a historical novel, stating that she disagreed with one of the more common definitions.

"But what exactly is a historical novel," she asked. "In my view, it does not refer to a novel set in the remote past and with real-life men and women as characters." 

"My own definition of a historical novel is the sort that Petronilo Daroy was referring to when he described it in 1968 as 'assimilating history into the texture of the narrative, rather than allowing it to remain a passive backdrop.'"

She continues that history is more than a setting, but that it comes into play in the motivation of characters and propels the plot. The characters then in these works are political beings, and their conflicts are engendered by political events.

Dr Pantoja-Hidalgo then segued into the works of Linda Ty-Casper. Here, she explained how Philippine history plays this role in those works, breaking down their plots and characters and pointing out how these were affected by the historical events taking place during the periods they were set in.

After the lecture, Mara Coson engaged in a conversation with Dr Pantoja-Hidalgo, bringing up her own observations from the lecture and some of Ty-Casper's novels for the latter to respond to.

The conversation also covered writings of other women writers, such as Ninotchka Roska, and how while they may not have been set in "historical" settings or featured events "fully in the past," they still count as historical due to how the event of those times are now part of Philippine history.

Following this, Dr Pantoja-Hidalgo and Ms Coson engaged in a lively open forum with the students in attendance. The questions raised included more practical tips on writing historical fiction, as well as more philosophical ones on writing about history when, as the saying goes, it tends to be "written by the victors."

Catch the entire lecture, and see photos from it below.

The Ateneo Literary and Cultural Studies Program offers degrees in AB Literature (English) and MA in Literary and Cultural Studies. Our degrees in literature were ranked in the most recent QS World Rankings as among the best globally. For inquiries, please email litcs.soh@ateneo.edu. You may also check out our FB page: https://www.facebook.com/AteneoLCSP.