Between the Empires: Martí, Rizal and the Limits of Global Resistance

[摘要] This dissertation aims to compare and contrast an aspect of the fin-de-siècle literature and history of anti-imperialism in Cuba and the Philippines. I focus my study on what may be the most prominent authors of the two contexts: José Martí (1853-1895) and José Rizal (1861-1896). Although scholars such as Benedict Anderson and Leopoldo Zea have already noted the obvious relations between Martí and Rizal, their anti-imperial texts have not been systematically compared. Caught between the two empires (Spain and the United States), their projects were equally overwhelming: while studying the history of the failed independence movement in their respective colonies, they attempted to transform the dilemmas of imperial culture into the building blocks for national liberation. Based on this historico-political premise, my study attempts to explore how Martí and Rizal employ different literary forms to articulate their discourse of protest and to what extent their political writings create the conditions of possibility for a transnational, inter-colonial form of resistance against imperial domination. One of the central contentions of this dissertation is that the two writers’ anti-imperial texts construct the conceptual framework for the idea of what I call 'global resistance.” By this, I mean to indicate the ways in which Cubans and Filipinos shared certain anti-colonial ideas and struggles against common opponents in the nineteenth century. Through literary analysis and historical study, I intend to examine both the possibilities and the limits of global resistance. The project involves diverse cultural points of reference, ranging from the Caribbean to Asia andseeking to participate in the ongoing debate within the field of Trans-Pacific Studies.

[发布机构] the University of Pittsburgh

[效力级别] Global Resistance