The UP Asian Center will be hosting the online book talk of Historia Obscura: The Philippines in 16th and 17th Century Portuguese Sources" on 10 November 2026, 2:00 PM, PHT, Online via Zoom. The event is free and open to the public, but signing up for a (free) Zoom account is required.
ABOUT THE FORUM
If one wonders about the comparative dearth of research on pre-twentieth-century historical studies on Mindanao, a number of paradoxes will provide an answer. To begin with, Mindanao has mostly been written by people from outside. To some degree, this is not surprising, given the legacy of the colonial past and its forms of bureaucratization and where the documents from and about Mindanao are stored today. But archival fragmentation and (unjust) colonial material legacies are not the only reason for limited historical scholarship from Mindanao. Truly and deeply studying the distant past is a luxury preserved to elites and wealthy states. This is more than a cruel postcolonial reality; it is also the reason why there are so few historical studies. For historians from outside, it is almost impossible to possess the necessary cultural and linguistic knowledge to appreciate the historical legacies ingrained in traditions, stories, and objects. Even written sources are often only partly accessible for researchers from outside. Mindanao-based researchers, in contrast, have physical, economic, or technical access limitations to their pasts. Making productive use of the linguistic and archival turns, the presenters in this forum will reflect on ways to empower future generations of historians to contribute to writing their local pasts into global narratives. To that end, they will introduce different types of archival sources and how to access and disseminate them.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
JETHRO A.E.A. CALACDAY, PH.D.
Schulman Research Fellow in History, Trinity Hall, Cambridge
Jethro A. E. A. Calacday is the Schulman Research Fellow in History at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, CB2 1TJ, United Kingdom. He is a scholar of global history whose research explores the entanglement of religion and empire in the making of the modern world. He works on the histories of the US in the World, the Philippines, Papal diplomacy, global Catholicism, and Southeast Asia. He is working on his first monograph provisionally titled Catholic Empire: The American Colonial State and the Roman Catholic Church in the Transimperial Philippines.
TEDDY YH SIM, Ph.D.
Associate Researcher, National Chung Cheng University
Teddy YH Sim (PhD, FRHistS) is an Associate Researcher at National Chung Cheng University and previously lectured at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. His research centres on early modern maritime and ethnic/migratory history in South and Southeast Asia. His latest book, co-authored with Dr Lorraine White, is entitled The Mascarenhas in Portugal and Its Empire, 1450–1850 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2026). One of his current research thrusts is examining aspects of the history of religious orders in the East in the 19th century.
BIRGIT TREMML-WERNER, Ph.D.
Senior Lecturer in Global History, Stockholm University
Birgit Tremml-Werner is Senior Lecturer in Global History at Stockholm University and Adjunct Professor at UP Diliman. She earned her PhD from the University of Vienna in 2012 with a study on early modern Manila, published as Spain, China and Japan in Manila (AUP, 2015; Chinese translation 2022). Her second book Negotiating Imperialism: Murakami Naojirō’s Archival Diplomacy (CUP 2025) examines how archival practices shaped narratives about a Japanese early modern expansion into Southeast Asia. Her research focuses on early modern diplomacy, trade, and multi-lingual communication. She held fellowships at the University of Tokyo, the University of Zürich, and Linnaeus University. A founding member of the Global Diplomacy Network, she also co-developed Global Archives Online, a digital resource for historical research.
ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS
This symposium is organized by the UP Asian Center. For inquiries, please contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 891-8500 loc. 3586.