Vicente Rafael

Bibliography

Books authored

  1. Rafael, Vicente L. The Sovereign Trickster: Death and Laughter in the Age of Duterte. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2022. Publisher.
  2. Rafael, Vicente L. Motherless Tongues: The Insurgency of Language amid Wars of Translation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016. Philippine coedition, Ateneo de Manila University Press. Publisher.
  3. Rafael, Vicente L. The Promise of the Foreign: Nationalism and the Technics of Translation in the Spanish Philippines. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005. Philippine coedition, Anvil Publishing. A new Ateneo de Manila University Press edition appeared in 2019 with a new preface. Publisher.
  4. Rafael, Vicente L. White Love and Other Events in Filipino History. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000. Philippine coedition, Ateneo de Manila University Press. Publisher.
  5. Rafael, Vicente L. Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988. Paperback edition, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993, with a new preface. Philippine paperback, Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1988; seventh printing, 2017, with a new preface. Duke edition · Cornell electronic edition.

Books edited and editorial projects

  1. Barker, Joshua, Vicente L. Rafael, Danilyn Rutherford, and John T. Sidel, eds. James Siegel Reappears: Festschrift for James T. Siegel. Special issue, Indonesia, no. 118, October 2024. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program. Journal issue. Listed among books in Rafael’s CV; bibliographically a special journal issue.
  2. Chittiphalangsri, Phrae, and Vicente L. Rafael, eds. Of Peninsulas and Archipelagos: The Landscape of Translation in Southeast Asia. London and New York: Routledge, 2023. Electronic edition · Publisher. First electronic publication, 2023; the publisher’s product page gives copyright 2024.
  3. Pratt, Mary Louise, and Vicente L. Rafael, guest eds. “The Politics of Language, Multilingualism, and Translation in American Studies.” Special issue, American Quarterly 73, no. 3, September 2021. Issue introduction.
  4. Joaquin, Nick. The Woman Who Had Two Navels and Tales of the Tropical Gothic. Introduction and editorial contribution by Vicente L. Rafael; foreword by Gina Apostol. New York: Penguin Classics, 2017. Publisher. Rafael’s introduction is “Telling Times: Nick Joaquin, Storyteller.”
  5. Rafael, Vicente L., ed. Figures of Criminality in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Colonial Vietnam. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 1999. Publisher.
  6. Rafael, Vicente L., ed. Discrepant Histories: Translocal Essays on Filipino Cultures. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995. Philippine coedition, Anvil Publishing. Publisher. The publisher confirms “on Filipino Cultures”; the CV sometimes gives “in.”

Articles and scholarly essays

  1. Rafael, Vicente L. “Imperiale Nachbeben: Die Philippinen in der Welt, 1565–1946.” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, nos. 40–41, 2025. Publication and text.
  2. Rafael, Vicente L. “Inventories and Interventions.” e.g. Journal, no. 2, April 2025. Journal issue. Title and attribution are recorded in his October 2025 CV.
  3. Rafael, Vicente L. “Photographic Power: Scenes from the United States and the Philippines.” Kritika Kultura, no. 44, 2024, article 5. Repository and text.
  4. Rafael, Vicente L. “The Jokes of Jim Siegel.” Indonesia, no. 118, October 2024: 145–150. DOI.
  5. Rafael, Vicente L. “Indigeneity and the Debts of Settler Translation.” Translation Studies 17, no. 1, 2024: 195–197. DOI. First published online December 7, 2023. The published title uses “translation,” rather than the CV’s “translators.”
  6. Rafael, Vicente L. “The Electoral Paradox: Colonial History, Duterte, and the Return of the Marcoses in the Philippines.” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 20, no. 16, September 2022, article 12. DOI. Some repository records give a later upload date.
  7. Rafael, Vicente L. “Telling Times: Nick Joaquin, Storyteller.” positions: asia critique 29, no. 1, 2021: 121–139. DOI. Journal version of the 2017 Penguin introduction. The CV gives the ending page as 141; DOI metadata gives 139.
  8. Rafael, Vicente L. “Photography and the Biopolitics of Fear: Witnessing the Philippine Drug War.” positions: asia critique 28, no. 4, 2020: 905–933. DOI.
  9. Rafael, Vicente L. “Linguistic Currencies: The Translative Power of English in Southeast Asia and the United States.” The Translator 25, no. 2, 2019: 142–158. DOI.
  10. Rafael, Vicente L. “The Sovereign Trickster.” The Journal of Asian Studies 78, no. 1, 2019: 141–166. DOI. Precedes the 2022 book of the same main title.
  11. Rafael, Vicente L. “Colonial Contractions: The Making of the Modern Philippines, 1565–1946.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History. Oxford University Press, 2018. DOI.
  12. Rafael, Vicente L. “Message.” Kritika Kultura, nos. 30–31, 2018. DOI. Short contribution; repository metadata does not provide a page range.
  13. Rafael, Vicente L. “Contingency and Comparison: Recalling Benedict Anderson.” Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints 64, no. 1, 2016: 135–144. DOI.
  14. Rafael, Vicente L. “Mutant Tongues: Translating English in the Postcolonial Humanities.” CR: The New Centennial Review 16, no. 1, 2016: 93–114. DOI.
  15. Rafael, Vicente L. “The Babel of Books: Libraries In and Out of Walls.” CORMOSEA Bulletin 34, Summer 2016: 21–29. CV record. Reprinted in PAARL Research Journal in 2017.
  16. Rafael, Vicente L. “The War of Translation: Colonial Education, American English, and Tagalog Slang in the Philippines.” The Journal of Asian Studies 74, no. 2, 2015: 283–302. DOI.
  17. Rafael, Vicente L. “Betraying Empire: Translation and the Ideology of Conquest.” Translation Studies 8, no. 1, 2015: 82–93. DOI. First published online July 17, 2014; the CV lists the online year.
  18. Rafael, Vicente L. “Response by Rafael to the Responses to ‘Betraying Empire: Translation and the Ideology of Conquest.’” Translation Studies 8, no. 3, 2015: 361–364. DOI.
  19. Rafael, Vicente L. “Becoming Rey Ileto: Language, History, and Autobiography.” Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints 62, no. 1, 2014: 115–132. DOI.
  20. Rafael, Vicente L. “Mis-education, Translation, and the Barkada of Languages: Reading Renato Constantino with Nick Joaquin.” Kritika Kultura, nos. 21–22, 2013–2014: 1–29. DOI. The combined issue spans 2013–2014; Crossref registers August 14, 2013, while the CV lists 2014.
  21. Rafael, Vicente L. “Contracting Colonialism and the Long 1970s.” Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints 61, no. 4, 2013: 477–494. DOI.
  22. Rafael, Vicente L. “Targeting Translation: Counterinsurgency and the Weaponization of Language.” Social Text 30, no. 4 (113), 2012: 55–80. DOI.
  23. Rafael, Vicente L. “Translation and the US Empire: Counterinsurgency and the Resistance of Language.” The Translator 18, no. 1, 2012: 1–22. DOI.
  24. Rafael, Vicente L. “Introduction: War, Race, and Nation in Philippine Colonial Transitions.” Southeast Asian Studies 49, no. 3, 2011: 347–355. DOI.
  25. Rafael, Vicente L. “Awake in America: Poetry and the Ghost of Democracy.” Journal of the American Studies Association of the Philippines 1, no. 1, December 2011: 51–58. CV record.
  26. Rafael, Vicente L. “Empire and Globalization: On the Recent Study of the Philippines in the United States.” Kritika Kultura, no. 16, 2011: 99–107. CV record.
  27. Rafael, Vicente L. “Welcoming What Comes: Sovereignty and Revolution in the Colonial Philippines.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 52, no. 1, 2010: 157–179. DOI.
  28. Rafael, Vicente L. “Translation, American English, and the National Insecurities of Empire.” Social Text 27, no. 4 (101), 2009: 1–23. DOI.
  29. Rafael, Vicente L. “Reorientations: Notes on the Study of the Philippines in the United States.” Philippine Studies 56, no. 4, 2008: 475–492. DOI.
  30. Rafael, Vicente L. “Scenes of Translation: Responses to Responses.” Kritika Kultura, no. 9, November 2007: 116–127. DOI. The CV places this entry under 2008 but gives the issue date as November 2007.
  31. Rafael, Vicente L. “Translation in Wartime.” Public Culture 19, no. 2, 2007: 239–246. DOI.
  32. Rafael, Vicente L. “The Gift of Nationalism: Comments on Fr. John Schumacher’s ‘The Burgos Manifiesto.’” Philippine Studies 54, no. 2, 2006: 305–311. DOI.
  33. Rafael, Vicente L. “The Cell Phone and the Crowd: Messianic Politics in the Contemporary Philippines.” Public Culture 15, no. 3, 2003: 399–425. DOI.
  34. Rafael, Vicente L. “The Cell Phone and the Crowd: Messianic Politics in the Contemporary Philippines.” Philippine Political Science Journal 24, no. 47, 2003: 3–36. DOI. Parallel publication of the essay also issued in Public Culture.
  35. Rafael, Vicente L. “The Contingencies of Area Studies in the United States.” Philippine Studies 51, no. 2, 2003: 309–318. DOI.
  36. Rafael, Vicente L. “Regionalism, Area Studies, and the Accidents of Agency.” The American Historical Review 104, no. 4, 1999: 1208–1220. DOI.
  37. Rafael, Vicente L. “‘Your Grief Is Our Gossip’: Overseas Filipinos and Other Spectral Presences.” Public Culture 9, no. 2, 1997: 267–291. DOI.
  38. Rafael, Vicente L. “Taglish, or the Phantom Power of the Lingua Franca.” Public Culture 8, no. 1, 1995: 101–126. DOI.
  39. Rafael, Vicente L. “Colonial Domesticity: White Women and United States Rule in the Philippines.” American Literature 67, no. 4, 1995: 639–666. DOI.
  40. Rafael, Vicente L. “Mimetic Subjects: Engendering Race at the Edge of Empire.” differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 7, no. 2, 1995: 127–149. CV record.
  41. Rafael, Vicente L. “The Cultures of Area Studies in the United States.” Social Text, no. 41, Winter 1994: 91–111. DOI.
  42. Rafael, Vicente L. “Of Mimicry and Marginality: Comments on Anna Tsing’s ‘From the Margins.’” Cultural Anthropology 9, no. 3, 1994: 298–301. DOI.
  43. Rafael, Vicente L. “White Love: Census and Melodrama in the United States Colonization of the Philippines.” History and Anthropology 8, nos. 1–4, 1994: 265–297. DOI. Related to the 1993 chapter in The Cultures of United States Imperialism; revised again for White Love in 2000.
  44. Rafael, Vicente L. “Anticipating Nationhood: Collaboration and Rumor in the Japanese Occupation of Manila.” Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 1, no. 1, 1991: 67–82. DOI.
  45. Rafael, Vicente L. “Collaboration and Rumor: The Philippines under Japanese Occupation.” Culture and History 8, 1990: 87–106. CV record.
  46. Rafael, Vicente L. “Nationalism, Imagery, and the Filipino Intelligentsia in the Nineteenth Century.” Critical Inquiry 16, no. 3, 1990: 591–611. DOI.
  47. Rafael, Vicente L. “Patronage and Pornography: Ideology and Spectatorship in the Early Marcos Years.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 32, no. 2, 1990: 282–304. DOI.
  48. Rafael, Vicente L. “Confession, Conversion, and Reciprocity in Early Tagalog Colonial Society.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 29, no. 2, 1987: 320–339. DOI.
  49. Rafael, Vicente L. “Fishing, Underwear, and Hunchbacks: Humor and Politics in the Philippines, 1886 and 1983.” Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 18, no. 3, 1986: 2–8. DOI.
  50. Rafael, Vicente L. “Salvaging the Past under the Marcos Regime.” Pilipinas, no. 6, Spring 1986: 67–73. CV record.
  51. Rafael, Vicente L. “Language, Authority and Gender in Rizal’s Noli.” Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs 18, Winter 1984: 110–140. CV record. The CV’s issue number requires checking against the original issue.
  52. Rafael, Vicente L. “From Mardicas to Filipinos: Ternate, Cavite, in Philippine History.” Philippine Studies 26, no. 4, 1978: 342–362. DOI.

Chapters, introductions, forewords, and prefaces

  1. Rafael, Vicente L. “Writing Amid the Babel of Books.” In How I Became a Writer 2: Essays by Filipino Writers, edited by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard. Vibal, 2026. Editor’s announcement. Posthumous publication; submitted in December 2025.
  2. Barker, Joshua, Vicente L. Rafael, and Danilyn Rutherford. “Introduction: Jim Siegel Reappears.” Indonesia, no. 118, October 2024: 1–7. DOI.
  3. Rafael, Vicente L. “Preface: Translationscapes in Southeast Asia.” In Of Peninsulas and Archipelagos: The Landscape of Translation in Southeast Asia, edited by Phrae Chittiphalangsri and Vicente L. Rafael. London and New York: Routledge, 2023. Book record.
  4. Rafael, Vicente L. “The Long 1970s and Beyond: Cultural Politics during the Marcos Years and in the Age of Duterte.” In Martial Law in the Philippines: Lessons and Legacies, 1972–2022, edited by Edilberto C. de Jesus and Ivyrose S. Baysic, 29–41. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2023. Publisher.
  5. Rafael, Vicente L. “The Experience of Translation.” In Time, Space, Matter in Translation, edited by Pamela Beattie, Simona Bertacco, and Tatjana Soldat-Jaffe, 19–32. London and New York: Routledge, 2022. DOI.
  6. Rafael, Vicente L. Foreword to Communal Intimacy and the Violence of Politics: Understanding the War on Drugs in Bagong Silang, Philippines, by Steffen Bo Jensen and Karl Hapal, vii–xiv. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2022. DOI.
  7. Rafael, Vicente L. “Patronage, Pornography and Youth: Ideology and Spectatorship during the Early Marcos Years.” In The Marcos Era: A Reader, edited by Leia Castañeda Anastacio and Patricio N. Abinales, 340–384. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2022. Publisher. Related to the 1990 article and the revised chapter in White Love.
  8. Rafael, Vicente L., and Mary Louise Pratt. “Introduction.” American Quarterly 73, no. 3, 2021: 419–437. DOI.
  9. Rafael, Vicente L. “The Poetics of Praise and the Demands of Confession in the Early Spanish Philippines: Notes and Documents.” In The Spanish Pacific, 1521–1815: A Reader in Primary Sources, edited by Christina H. Lee and Ricardo Padrón, 205–222. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020. DOI.
  10. Rafael, Vicente L. “Preface to the 2019 Edition.” In The Promise of the Foreign: Nationalism and the Technics of Translation in the Spanish Philippines, xii–xvii. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2019. CV record.
  11. Rafael, Vicente L. “Power, Play and Pedagogy: Reading the Early De la Costa.” In Reading Horacio de la Costa: Views from the 21st Century, edited by Soledad S. Reyes. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2017. CV record.
  12. Rafael, Vicente L. “Telling Times: Nick Joaquin, Storyteller.” Introduction to The Woman Who Had Two Navels and Tales of the Tropical Gothic, by Nick Joaquin. New York: Penguin Classics, 2017. Publisher. A journal version appeared in positions in 2021.
  13. Rafael, Vicente L. “Pity, Recognition and the Risks of Literature in Balagtas.” In Philippine Modernities: Music, Performing Arts and Language, 1880–1941, edited by José S. Buenconsejo, 221–246. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2017. CV record.
  14. Rundle, Christopher, and Vicente Rafael. “History and Translation: The Event of Language.” In Border Crossings: Translation Studies and Other Disciplines, edited by Yves Gambier and Luc van Doorslaer, 23–48. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2016. DOI. Listed under a different title in the CV.
  15. Rafael, Vicente L. “Revolutionary Contradictions.” Introduction to Luzon at War: Contradictions in Philippine Society, 1898–1902, by Milagros C. Guerrero, 1–19. Manila: Anvil Publishing, 2015. Publisher catalogue. The catalogue confirms 1898–1902; the CV gives 1899–1902.
  16. Rafael, Vicente L. “Radiant Hope, Dark Despair.” Foreword to Subversive Lives: A Family Memoir of the Marcos Years, by Susan F. Quimpo and Nathan Gilbert Quimpo. Metro Manila: Anvil Publishing, 2012. CV record. Reissued in the Ohio University Press edition, 2016.
  17. Rafael, Vicente L. “Conjuración/Conspiracy in the Philippine Revolution of 1896.” In Words in Motion: Toward a Global Lexicon, edited by Carol Gluck and Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, 219–239. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009. DOI.
  18. Rafael, Vicente L. “The Afterlife of Empire: Sovereignty and Revolution in the Spanish Philippines.” In Colonial Crucible: Empire in the Making of the Modern American State, edited by Alfred W. McCoy and Francisco A. Scarano, 342–352. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009. DOI.
  19. Rafael, Vicente L. “Southeast Asian Studies in the Age of Asian America.” In Southeast Asian Studies for the Twenty-First Century, edited by Anthony Reid. Tempe: Arizona State University, 2004. CV record.
  20. Rafael, Vicente L. “Foreignness and Vengeance: On Rizal’s El Filibusterismo.” In Southeast Asia over Three Generations: Essays Presented to Benedict R. O’G. Anderson, edited by James T. Siegel and Audrey R. Kahin, 165–188. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2003. Publisher.
  21. Rafael, Vicente L. “Translation and Revenge: Castilian and the Origins of Nationalism in the Philippines.” In The Places of History: Regionalism Revisited in Latin America, edited by Doris Sommer, 214–235. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999. DOI.
  22. Rafael, Vicente L. “Introduction: Criminality and Its Others.” In Figures of Criminality in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Colonial Vietnam, edited by Vicente L. Rafael, 9–22. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 1999. DOI. Link leads to a later electronic edition.
  23. Rafael, Vicente L. “Updates: Doubled Histories.” In Talkin’ with Your Mouth Full: Conversations with the Videos of Steve Fagin, edited by Steve Fagin, 247–253. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998. CV record.
  24. Abraham, Itty, and Vicente L. Rafael. “Introduction.” Special issue on Southeast Asian diaspora, Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 12, no. 2, 1997: 145–152. DOI.
  25. Rafael, Vicente L. Introduction to Discrepant Histories: Translocal Essays on Filipino Cultures, edited by Vicente L. Rafael. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995. Publisher.
  26. Rafael, Vicente L. “White Love: Surveillance and Nationalist Resistance in the United States Colonization of the Philippines.” In The Cultures of United States Imperialism, edited by Amy Kaplan and Donald E. Pease, 185–218. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993. DOI. The CV gives 185–210; metadata for the linked edition gives 185–218 and a 1994 publication date.
  27. Rafael, Vicente L. “Preface to the Paperback Edition.” In Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule, ix–xvi. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993. CV record.
  28. Rafael, Vicente L. “Comments on Edward Tiryakian’s Paper, ‘Nationalist Movements in Advanced Societies.’” In Perspectives on Nationalism and War, edited by John Comaroff and Paul Stern, 189–192. New York: Center for Studies of Social Change, 1993. CV record.
  29. Rafael, Vicente L. “God and Grammar: The Politics of Translation in the Spanish Colonization of the Philippines.” In Notebooks in Cultural Analysis, edited by Nathalia King and Norman F. Cantor, 97–130. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1986. CV record.

Published interviews and conversations

  1. Polezzi, Loredana, with Mona Baker and Vicente L. Rafael. “The Politics and Ethics of Translation: A Conversation with Mona Baker and Vicente L. Rafael.” Wasafiri 37, no. 3 (111), 2022: 3–7. DOI.
  2. Lindley, Robin. “Vicente Rafael on the ‘Sovereign Trickster’ Rodrigo Duterte and Politics in the Philippines.” Interview with Vicente L. Rafael. History News Network, 2022. Interview.
  3. Barker, Joshua, and Vicente L. Rafael. “The Event of Otherness: An Interview with James T. Siegel.” Indonesia, no. 93, April 2012: 33–52. DOI. The CV gives 1–19; the journal record identifies 33–52.
  4. Aguilar, Filomeno V., Caroline Sy Hau, Vicente Rafael, and Teresa S. Encarnacion Tadem. “Benedict Anderson, Comparatively Speaking: On Area Studies, Theory, and ‘Gentlemanly’ Polemics.” Philippine Studies 59, no. 1, 2011: 107–139. Repository and text. The repository’s recommended citation uses a 2012 date; the journal volume is 2011.

Reprints, translations, and later editions

  1. Barker, Joshua, and Vicente L. Rafael. “The Event of Otherness: An Interview with James T. Siegel.” Reprinted in Indonesia, no. 118, October 2024: 21–39. DOI. Original interview published in 2012.
  2. Rafael, Vicente L. “Translation, American English, and the National Insecurities of Empire.” In The Translation Studies Reader, 4th ed., edited by Lawrence Venuti, 436–452. London and New York: Routledge, 2021. DOI. Reprint of the 2009 Social Text essay.
  3. Rafael, Vicente L. “The Babel of Books: Libraries In and Out of Walls.” PAARL Research Journal 3, no. 1, 2017: 51–56. CV record. Reprint of the 2016 CORMOSEA Bulletin essay.
  4. Rafael, Vicente L. “Contingency and Comparison: Recalling Ben Anderson.” Indonesia, no. 101, April 2016: 21–27. DOI. Version of the essay published in Philippine Studies in 2016.
  5. Rafael, Vicente L. Foreword to Subversive Lives: A Family Memoir of the Marcos Years, by Susan F. Quimpo and Nathan Gilbert Quimpo, vii–xiv. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2016. DOI. Earlier edition published by Anvil in 2012.
  6. Rafael, Vicente L. “Translation, American English, and the National Insecurities of Empire.” In Formations of United States Colonialism, edited by Alyosha Goldstein, 335–359. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014. DOI. Reprint of the 2009 Social Text essay.
  7. Rafael, Vicente L. “Translation, American English, and the National Insecurities of Empire.” In The Translation Studies Reader, 3rd ed., edited by Lawrence Venuti. London and New York: Routledge, 2012. CV record. The CV conflates the third and fourth editions.
  8. Rafael, Vicente L. “La vida después del imperio: Soberanía y revolución en las Filipinas españolas.” In Repensar Filipinas: Política, identidad y religión en la construcción de la nación filipina, edited by María Dolores Elizalde Pérez-Grueso, 181–206. Barcelona: Edicions Bellaterra, 2009. CV record.
  9. Rafael, Vicente L. “Taglish, or the Phantom Power of the Lingua Franca.” In Philippine English: Linguistic and Literary Perspectives, edited by Ma. Lourdes S. Bautista and Kingsley Bolton, 101–127. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2008. DOI.
  10. Rafael, Vicente L. “Foreignness and Vengeance.” In Border Interrogations: Questioning Spanish Frontiers, edited by Benita Sampedro Vizcaya and Simon Doubleday, 120–146. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2008. DOI. Reprint of the 2003 essay on El Filibusterismo.
  11. Rafael, Vicente L. “The Cell Phone and the Crowd: Messianic Politics in Recent Philippine History.” In Practicing Catholic: Ritual, Body, and Contestation in Catholic Faith, edited by Bruce T. Morrill, Joanna E. Ziegler, and Susan Rodgers, 185–201. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. DOI.
  12. Rafael, Vicente L. “The Cell Phone and the Crowd.” In New Media, Old Media: A History and Theory Reader, edited by Wendy Hui Kyong Chun and Thomas Keenan. New York: Routledge, 2005. CV record.
  13. Rafael, Vicente L. “The Cell Phone and the Crowd.” In Histories of the Future, edited by Daniel Rosenberg and Susan Harding, 75–103. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005. DOI.
  14. Rafael, Vicente L. “The Cell Phone and the Crowd.” In Asia Unplugged: The Wireless and Mobile Media Boom in the Asia-Pacific, edited by Madanmohan Rao and Lunita Mendoza, 286–318. New Delhi: Response Books/Sage, 2005. CV record.
  15. Rafael, Vicente L. “Il cellulare e la folla: politica messianica nelle Filippine contemporanee.” Translated by Clara Banderali. In Antropologia e media: Tecnologie, etnografie, e critica culturale, edited by Monica Fagioli and Sara Zambotti, 81–118. Como and Pavia: Ibis Edizioni, 2005. CV record. Italian translation of the 2003 essay.
  16. Rafael, Vicente L. “Patronage and Pornography: Ideology and Spectatorship in the Early Marcos Years.” In Text/Politics in Island Southeast Asia, edited by D. M. Roskies, 49–81. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1993. CV record. Reprint of the 1990 article.
  17. Rafael, Vicente L. “Confession, Conversion, and Reciprocity in Early Tagalog Colonial Society.” In Colonialism and Culture, edited by Nicholas B. Dirks, 65–88. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992. CV record. Reprint of the 1987 article.
  18. Rafael, Vicente L. “Fishing, Underwear, and Hunchbacks: Humor and Politics in the Philippines, 1886 and 1983.” Archipel, no. 35, 1988: 195–204. CV record. Reprint of the 1986 essay.

Book reviews and review essays

  1. Rafael, Vicente L. “The Empire of Fashion.” Review of Beauty Regimes: A History of Power and Empire in the Philippines, 1898–1941, by Genevieve Alva Clutario. Diplomatic History 48, no. 2, 2024: 307–309. DOI. First published online in November 2023.
  2. Rafael, Vicente L. Review of Civilizational Imperatives: Americans, Moros, and the Colonial World, by Oliver Charbonneau. Pacific Affairs 95, no. 3, 2022: 655–657. DOI.
  3. Rafael, Vicente L. Review of The Third Asiatic Invasion: Empire and Migration in Filipino America, 1898–1946, by Rick Baldoz. The American Historical Review 117, no. 1, 2012: 218–219. DOI.
  4. Rafael, Vicente L. Review of Things Fall Away: Philippine Historical Experience and the Makings of Globalization, by Neferti X. M. Tadiar. Philippine Studies 59, no. 1, 2011: 141–151. DOI.
  5. Rafael, Vicente L. Review of Investing in Miracles: El Shaddai and the Transformation of Popular Catholicism in the Philippines, by Katherine L. Wiegele. Pacific Affairs 78, no. 4, 2005: 683–684. DOI.
  6. Rafael, Vicente L. Review of American Workers, Colonial Power: Philippine Seattle and the Transpacific West, 1919–1941, by Dorothy B. Fujita-Rony. Pacific Historical Review 73, no. 1, 2004: 147–150. CV record.
  7. Rafael, Vicente L. Review of Palabas: Essays on Philippine Theater History, by Doreen G. Fernandez. The Journal of Asian Studies 58, no. 4, 1999: 1194–1196. DOI.
  8. Rafael, Vicente L. “Criminality and Sociality.” Review of Crime, Society and the State in the Nineteenth-Century Philippines, by Greg Bankoff. Philippine Studies 47, no. 1, 1999: 129–132. DOI. The CV misidentifies the journal volume as 42.
  9. Rafael, Vicente L. Review of Inventing a Hero: The Posthumous Re-creation of Andres Bonifacio, by Glenn Anthony May. The American Historical Review 103, no. 4, 1998: 1304–1306. DOI. The CV lists 1999; the journal record gives October 1998.
  10. Rafael, Vicente L. Review of From Marcos to Aquino: Local Perspectives on Political Transition in the Philippines, edited by Benedict J. Kerkvliet and Resil B. Mojares. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 24, no. 2, 1993: 441–443. DOI.
  11. Rafael, Vicente L. Review of Power and Difference: Gender in Island Southeast Asia, edited by Jane Monnig Atkinson and Shelley Errington. Ethnohistory 39, no. 4, 1992: 554–555. DOI.
  12. Rafael, Vicente L. Review of Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis, by Renato Rosaldo. The Contemporary Pacific 3, no. 2, 1991: 469–472. CV record.
  13. Rafael, Vicente L. Review of The Hidden Light: The First Filipino Priests, by Luciano P. R. Santiago. The Journal of Asian Studies 49, no. 1, 1990: 219–220. DOI.
  14. Rafael, Vicente L. “Revising Colonial History.” Philippine Studies 37, no. 3, 1989: 367–371. DOI.
  15. Rafael, Vicente L. Review of Casaysayan nang Pasiong Mahal ni Jesucristong Panginoon Natin na Sucat Ipag-alab nang Puso nang Sinomang Babasa, introduced, annotated, and translated by René B. Javellana. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 20, no. 2, 1989: 303–304. DOI.
  16. Rafael, Vicente L. Review of The February Revolution and Other Reflections, by Miguel A. Bernad; Onward Christians! Protestants in the Philippine Revolution, by Richard L. Schwenk; and Philippine Revolution 1986: Model of Nonviolent Change, by Douglas J. Elwood. The Journal of Asian Studies 47, no. 2, 1988: 411–413. DOI.
  17. Rafael, Vicente L. Review of The Contemporary Muslim Movement in the Philippines, by Cesar Adib Majul. Journal of Church and State, 1987: 545–547. CV record.
  18. Rafael, Vicente L. Review of Philippine Social History: Global Trade and Local Transformations, edited by Alfred W. McCoy and Ed. C. de Jesus. The Journal of Asian Studies 45, no. 3, 1986: 655–658. DOI. The CV gives 655–668; the journal record gives 655–658.
  19. Rafael, Vicente L. Review of A Study of a Sixteenth-Century Tagalog Manuscript on the Ten Commandments: Its Significance and Implications, by Antonio-Ma. Rosales. The Journal of Asian Studies 45, no. 2, 1986: 465–466. DOI.
  20. Rafael, Vicente L. “Pace and Mood of a Philippine Era.” Philippine Studies 27, no. 3, 1979: 432–438. Repository and text.

Journalism and public criticism

The older newspaper titles and URLs below largely follow Rafael’s CV. Where a recorded title differs from the URL or may differ from the published headline, that discrepancy is noted.

  1. Rafael, Vicente L. “Massacre Under the Starry Flag.” Review of Massacre in the Clouds: An American Atrocity and the Erasure of History, by Kim A. Wagner. The New York Review of Books, October 23, 2025. Publication.
  2. Rafael, Vicente L. “The Return of the Marcoses.” The New York Review of Books, July 21, 2022. Publication.
  3. Rafael, Vicente L. “Duterte’s Phallus: On the Aesthetics of Authoritarian Vulgarity.” positions politics, Praxis, January 31, 2022. Publication.
  4. Rafael, Vicente L. “Impeachment Blues.” Philippine Daily Inquirer, November 28, 2019. Publication.
  5. Rafael, Vicente L. “Circumnavigating the Circumnavigators.” Rappler, November 16, 2019. CV-listed URL.
  6. Rafael, Vicente L. “Duterte’s Sense of History.” Rappler, November 10, 2019. CV-listed URL.
  7. Rafael, Vicente L. “Fact, Fiction, Fetish.” Rappler, August 27, 2017. CV-listed URL.
  8. Rafael, Vicente L. “Lola’s Resistant Dignity: Reading ‘My Family’s Slave’ in the Context of Philippine History.” The Atlantic, May 31, 2017. Publication. Title as recorded in the CV; the published online headline may differ.
  9. Rafael, Vicente L. “My Family’s Slave: A UW Professor Weighs In.” Crosscut, May 18, 2017. CV-listed URL.
  10. Rafael, Vicente L. “Duterte Unbound.” Dissent 64, no. 2, Spring 2017: 102–105. DOI.
  11. Rafael, Vicente L. “De Lima’s Arrest: Justice as Revenge.” Rappler, February 26, 2017. CV-listed URL.
  12. Rafael, Vicente L. “Duterte, Mocha Outflanking Critics.” Rappler, January 10, 2017. CV-listed URL.
  13. Rafael, Vicente L. “The Politics of Death.” Rappler, November 23, 2016. CV-listed URL.
  14. Rafael, Vicente L. “Duterte, War Maker.” Philippine Daily Inquirer, November 12, 2016. Publication.
  15. Rafael, Vicente L. “Marcos Is Dead, Long Live Marcos.” Rappler, August 10, 2016. CV-listed URL.
  16. Rafael, Vicente L. “Comparing Extra-Judicial Killings in the Philippines and the US.” Rappler, July 17, 2016. CV-listed URL.
  17. Rafael, Vicente L. “Duterte’s Hobbesian World.” Philippine Daily Inquirer, June 13, 2016. Publication.
  18. Rafael, Vicente L. “Digong the Storyteller.” Rappler, June 6, 2016. CV-listed URL.
  19. Rafael, Vicente L. “Comparing Digong with P-Noy.” Philippine Daily Inquirer, May 28, 2016. Publication. The CV says “Comparing”; the URL uses “contrasting.”
  20. Rafael, Vicente L. “What Was EDSA?” Philippine Daily Inquirer, February 25, 2016. Publication.
  21. Rafael, Vicente L. “The Dream of Benevolent Dictatorship.” Philippine Daily Inquirer, November 15, 2015. Publication.
  22. Rafael, Vicente L. “Filipino, the Language Which Is Not One.” Rappler, August 21, 2015. CV-listed URL.
  23. Rafael, Vicente L. “Finding No Respite from the Traffic Jams and Crowds.” Rappler, August 7, 2015. CV-listed URL.
  24. Rafael, Vicente L. “Racism in the Philippines: Does It Matter?” Rappler, June 26, 2015. CV-listed URL.
  25. Rafael, Vicente L. “How Revolutionary Was the Revolution?” Rappler, May 28, 2015. CV-listed URL.
  26. Rafael, Vicente L. “The Dangers of ‘Terrorism.’” Rappler, February 18, 2015. CV-listed URL.
  27. Rafael, Vicente L. “‘Ama ng Bayan’ and the Crisis of Infantile Citizenship.” Philippine Daily Inquirer, February 12, 2015. Publication.
  28. Rafael, Vicente L. “The Irony of Free Speech.” Philippine Daily Inquirer, January 12, 2015. Publication.
  29. Rafael, Vicente L. “Bonifacio for Today.” Philippine Daily Inquirer, December 31, 2014. Publication. The CV gives “for Today”; the URL uses “for the Present.”
  30. Rafael, Vicente L. “Manang Letty’s Farm.” Philippine Daily Inquirer, September 12, 2014. Publication.
  31. Rafael, Vicente L. “Photography on Mother’s Day.” Philippine Daily Inquirer, May 15, 2014. Publication.
  32. Rafael, Vicente L. “Photographing Disaster: Typhoon Yolanda.” Social Text Online, April 24, 2014. Publication.
  33. Rafael, Vicente L. “Servants, or the Secret of Middle Class Life.” Philippine Daily Inquirer, April 5, 2014. Publication.
  34. Rafael, Vicente L. “A New Social Class?” Philippine Daily Inquirer, February 2, 2014. Publication.
  35. Rafael, Vicente L. “Trayvon Martin and Edward Snowden.” History News Network, 2013. Also published as “Intersecting Lives: Martin and Snowden” in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Inquirer version.
  36. Rafael, Vicente L. “Excavating the Fourth of July.” BusinessWorld Online, June 30, 2013; reposted by Global Balita, July 1, 2013. CV record.
  37. Rafael, Vicente L. “The Pastoral and the Liberal: Reflections on the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill.” Philippine Daily Inquirer, December 17, 2012, A17. Publication.
  38. Rafael, Vicente L. “U.S. Bases a Flashpoint in the Struggle to Control the Philippines.” San Diego Union, September 19, 1991. CV record.

Dissertation

  1. Rafael, Vicente L. “Contracting Christianity: Conversions and Translations in Early Tagalog Colonial Society.” PhD diss., Cornell University, 1984. Bibliographic listing. Precursor to Contracting Colonialism. The link supplies a bibliographic listing rather than a dissertation download.

Additional entries requiring bibliographic checking

These are excluded from the numbered count because their publication history or citation remains incomplete.

  • “Translating ‘Kalayaan’ on the Eve of the Filipino Revolution.” Contribution to a festschrift for Soledad S. Reyes. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2008. The CV does not identify the host volume or pagination. CV record.
  • “Parricides, Bastards and Counter-Revolutionaries: Reflections on the Philippine Centennial.” Listed in the Journal of the Institute of Romance Studies and subsequently in Vestiges of War: The Philippine-American War and the Aftermath of an Imperial Dream, 1899–1999, edited by Angel Velasco Shaw and Luis H. Francia, New York University Press. The CV places the entry under 2003; citations to Vestiges of War often give 2002 and a slightly different essay title. The journal version and book version require separate checking. CV record.
  • Foreword to The Tayabas Chronicles: The Early Years, 1886–1907. Associated with Nita Umali Berthelsen and Karen Berthelsen Cardenas. The book has an earlier Anvil edition and a 2017 electronic edition; the foreword needs to be matched to the edition consulted. Author’s uploaded foreword.
  • “We’re Still Talking about ‘My Family’s Slave.’” Code Switch, National Public Radio, 2017. Rafael is listed as a participant. Episode date and credits require confirmation before treating this as an authored contribution. CV record.
  • “The Undead: Notes on Photography in the Philippines, 1898–1920s.” Chapter 3 of White Love and Other Events in Filipino History, 2000, beginning at page 76. Its original inclusion in the book is established. A separate reprint in Empires of Vision should be confirmed against that collection’s contents before being cited. Author’s uploaded chapter.

Unfinished projects recorded in the October 2025 CV

  • Rafael, Vicente L. The Philippine Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Duke University Press. Listed as “in process”; excluded from the published-book count. CV record.
  • Rafael, Vicente L. “‘Words the Color of Pulsating Flesh’: The Biopolitics of Translation in Frantz Fanon.” Listed as “in process”; excluded from the published-essay count. CV record.

Principal bibliographic sources