Dr Soledad Reyes discusses the Filipinization movement in Philippine literature, in inaugural Founding Series lecture of the LCSP

On 25 April 2025, Ateneo de Manila University's Literary and Cultural Studies Program (LCSP) hosted a lecture by Dr Soledad Reyes, as part of Ateneo's celebration of National Literature Month. The lecture also served as the inaugural lecture of the LCSP's Founding Lecture Series.

Dr Soledad Sarmiento Reyes is a Philippine literatury scholar, literary and art critic, author, anthologist, consultant, professor, instructor, editor, annotator, researcher, and essayist. She received her Bachelor's Degree from Maryknoll College (now Miriam College), before completing her Master of Arts in Literatyre at Ateneo de Manila University, and later her PhD in Philippine Studies at the University of the Philippines Diliman. In addition, she also has a Master of Arts in Sociology of Literature from the University of Essex in England.

LCSP Director Dr Charlie Samuya Veric, who acted as the moderator and host, described the lecture as a way to hear firsthand how the Filipinization movement took root in Ateneo.

In her lecture proper, Dr Reyes gave a personal account of both the Filipinization movement of the late 1960s and early 1970, as well as of her own development as an intellectual. She began with how her years as an undergraduate at the then Maryknoll College were mostly shaped by Western ideas and texts. It was the political unrest during the Martial law period, which coincided with her stay in Ateneo, that exposed the distance between these Western ideas and everyday Filipino realities.

This distance influenced her own work from that point onwards, beginning with her research on Tagalog novelist Macario Pineda, while also pushing her to look beyond the world that she knew.

After her lecture, Dr Reyes and the audience engaged in a lively open forum.

Dr Reyes' lecture was organized by the LCSP in partnership with the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino, National Book Development Board, Kritika Kultura, and PLUME.

The Literary and Cultural Studies Program offers degrees in AB Literature (English) and MA in Literary and Cultural Studies. For more information, please e-mail litcs.soh@ateneo.edu or visit the program’s website.