Thursday, March 28, 2024

International scholars attend ICOPHIL-10

SILLIMAN UNIVERSITY (SU), in partnership with Philippine Studies Association (PSA), hosted the 10th International Conference on Philippine Studies (ICOPHIL-10) last July 6-8.

A total of 68 different sessions on Philippine history, literature, cultural politics, media, and many others revolved around this year’s theme, “Re-Imagining Community, Scholarship and Citizenship.”

SU President Ben S. Malayang III pointed out in his speech that the true purpose of ICOPHIL is to assess truth and the accuracy of a nation.

 “There’s challenge to correctly and truthfully imagine a nation. There are issues to be addressed so that [re-imagining] a nation could be confidently true and correct. The imperative it seems to me is to construct truthful images of a country and people.”

ICOPHIL aims to foster conversations and collaborations within and across a wide variety of fields among academics, policymakers, and advocates.

SU, the first place to host ICOPHIL outside of Metro Manila, welcomed more than 400 scholars from various colleges and universities from all over Asia, North America, Europe, Australia, and Africa.

Institutions who participated in the event are the Smithsonian Institution from Washington DC, Archaeology Division and Anthropology Division from the National Museum of the Philippines Geology Division, National Museum of the Philippines Department of Education Philippines, Southeast Asian Fisheries, Development Center from Iloilo, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas from Spanish National Research and the Field Museum of Natural History.

Non-government organizations namely TAO Management, Inc., Philippine Association of Chinese Studies, The Asia Foundation, and Asian Cultural History Program also took part.

Meanwhile, Dr. Bernadita R. Churchill, ICOPHIL council chair, conference convener, and historian will donate her entire collection to the SU library.

“I’m sure Silliman will take good care of my entire collection which I consider to be my most treasured possession,” Churchill said.

Churchill also expressed that through the help of the collection she will be donating, she wishes for “the Silliman Department of History to become the center of research in local history in the Visayas.”

This event is held every four years with ICOPHIL 2020 taking place in Universidad de Alicante, Spain.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Latest articles