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The Last Time I Saw Manila

Frank, Rebecca M.

Abstract Details

2012, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences: English and Comparative Literature.

This dissertation consists of two parts: a book-length collection of poems and a critical essay. The creative portion of the dissertation is The Last Time I Saw Manila, a volume of poems that examines American and Japanese occupation of the Philippine Islands from the Spanish American War through World War II. While one hybrid family’s narrative serves as a unifying thread in this collection, multiple personae allow the actions and impact of imperialism and war to be depicted from shifting points of view that encompass characters of different ethnic, religious, and national identities. Varied poetic forms and personae mirror the complexity of mestizo and colonial identity in a colonized territory, while the unified lyric voice serves to both argue for, and question, the presence of a fixed moral viewpoint in the face of the atrocities of war and occupation. This collection serves as historical documentation in snapshots, deconstructed family narrative, and contemporary commentary on the legacy and consequences of American imperialism.

The critical portion of the dissertation is an examination of the poetic structures used in C.S. Giscombe’s Giscombe Road and Kevin Young’s Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebellion to interrogate dominant historical narratives that have traditionally erased African American experience and history. Giscombe engages in deconstruction of language and the apparently fixed and “true” object, the map, through disruption, fragmentation, and the inclusion of visual typographical and topographical elements. Young revisits and recontextualizes images and texts from John Warner Barber’s 1840 history of the Amistad rebellion through the use of personae that voice the African perspective and through doubling within poetic figures. Each poet offers structural solutions to problems that arise in poetic explorations of historical narratives.

Donald Bogen, PhD (Committee Chair)
Danielle Deulen, PhD (Committee Member)
John Drury, MFA (Committee Member)
87 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Frank, R. M. (2012). The Last Time I Saw Manila [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1337007672

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Frank, Rebecca. The Last Time I Saw Manila. 2012. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1337007672.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Frank, Rebecca. "The Last Time I Saw Manila." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1337007672

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)