Beauty and brutality : Manila and its global discontents

Beauty and Brutality provides an exciting, original, and critical encounter with this labyrinthine city's imagined and material landscape. The authors and contributors investigate the "messy, fleshy, recalcitrant, mercurial, and immeasurable qualities of the city," examining its urban space and smell: how it is represented in films, literature, music, and urban streetart; how it has endured the politics of colonialism, U.S. imperialism, neoliberalism, and globalization; as well as how its queer citizens engage with digital media platforms to communicate and connect with each other. The first volume to offer a cultural and urban studies approach to Manila, Beauty and Brutality considers the tensions of the Filipino diaspora as they migrate and "re-turn," as well as the citizens' responses to the Marcos (and post-Marcos) dictatorship, President Duterte's authoritarianism, and "Drug War." Essays also map out of geographies of repression and resistance in the urban war of classes, genders and sexualities, ethnicities and races, and generations, along with the violence of urban life and growth. Ultimately, Beauty and Brutality frames Manila as a vibrant and ever-evolving metropolis that, even in the face of its difficulties, instills hope. Contributors: Paul Michael Leonardo Atienza, Christine Bacareza Balance, Vanessa Banta, Rosa Cordillera A. Castillo, Roland Sintos Coloma, Gary C. Devilles, Faith R. Kares, John B. Labella, Raffy Lerma, Bliss Cua Lim, Ferdinand M. Lopez, Paul Nadal, Jema M. Pamintuan, Oscar Tantoco Serquiña, Jr., Louise Jashil R. Sonido, and the editors. Contents Acknowledgments in Three Parts Manila in the World / Martin F. Manalansan IV, Rolando B. Tolentino, and Robert Diaz Scenes Not So Fair: Poetic Representations of the Philippine Capital City / Oscar Tantoco Serquiña Jr. Smelling Manila / Gary C. Devilles A Tale of Three Buildings: The National Film Archive, Marcos Cultural Policy, and Anarchival Temporality / Bliss Cua Lim Wayward Informality, Queer Urbanism: Manila, the Dark and Decadent City / Ferdinand M. Lopez This Is Our City: Manila, Popular Music, and the Translocal / Christine Bacareza Balance Nodes of a City Labyrinth / John B. Labella Of Demolitions and Dispossession: The Everyday Violence of Metro Manila’s Growth Politics / Faith R. Kares Recalling to Sitio San Roque: Countermapping Urban Spaces in Quezon City / Vanessa Banta Infrastructural Futures: Arroyo’s Philippines in a Technological Frame / Paul Nadal “The Struggle Continues...”: On the Cruel Optimism of LGBT Organizing / Roland Sintos Coloma Sociotechnical Infrastructures: Tracing Gay Socio-Sexual App Socialities in Manila / Paul Michael Leonardo Atienza Halimaw: A Hauntology of Manila in Street Art / Louise Jashil R. Sonido Endo, Manila Kentex Fire, and Contractualization under Global Capitalism / Jema Pamintuan Regime-Made Disaster in Metro Manila: Beyond an Aesthetics Reading of Photographs of Duterte’s “Drug War” / Rosa Cordillera A. Castillo and Raffy Lerma Contributors Index "This edited volume deconstructs popular generalizations of Manila. Bringing together scholars from across the humanities and social sciences, this volume presents a series of multidisciplinary lenses to understand the complexities and contradictions of Manila, illustrating the breadth of experience it represents and that its citizens live"-- Provided by publisher Diverse perspectives on Manila that suggest the city's exhilarating sights and sounds broaden how Philippine histories are defined and understood