Wherever I am, the world comes after me.
It offers me its busyness. It does not believe that I do not want it.
Now I understand why the old poets of China went so far
and high into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.
"The Old Poets of China" by Mary Oliver

A conversation with Benedict Anderson

Benedict Anderson, renowned and distinguished scholar of Southeast Asian studies, will be a guest at a special public forum on Monday, March 11, 2013, 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., at the GT-Toyota Asian Center Auditorium, University of the Philippines Diliman.

Entitled “A Conversation with Benedict Anderson,” the forum will be in the format of a panel interview to be conducted by four scholars from the University of the Philippines Diliman: Professor Eduardo Gonzalez, Asian Center; Professor Lily Rose Tope, Department of English and Comparative Literature; Associate Professor Ramon “Bomen” Guillermo, Department of Filipino and Philippine Literature; and Associate Professor Michiyo Yoneno-Reyes, Asian Center. 

The event is organized by the U.P. Asian Center, in partnership with the Asian Politics & Policy journal (Wiley-Blackwell/PSO); the Asian Studies journal; the UP Department of English and Comparative Literature; the UP Department of Political Science; and the UP Third World Studies Center. The interview will subsequently be published in Asian Politics & Policy.  

Benedict Richard O’Gorman Anderson is Aaron L. Binenkorb Professor Emeritus of International Studies, Government and Asian Studies at Cornell University. He is best known for his Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, which was first published in 1983 but has since undergone countless editions. It is a path-breaking and highly innovative work that has supplied one of the most popular and oft-quoted concepts in the academe and beyond. His other books include The Spectre of Comparisons (1998); Under Three Flags: Anarchism and the Anti-colonial Imagination (2007); and The Fate of Rural Hell: Asceticism and Desire in Buddhist Thailand (2012).


Admission is free and open to the public, but seats are on a first-come, first-served basis.  The GT-Toyota Asian Center Auditorium is located on Magsaysay cor. Guerrero Sts., University of the Philippines Diliman.

For inquiries, please contact Janus Nolasco or Kat Navallo at 981-8500 local 3586 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..