“Antonio Taguba, Filipino Americanism, and the Critique of Torture"

Co-sponsored by the Dept. of Ethnic Studies

Army Major General Antonio Taguba’s 2004 declassified report on U.S. torture at Abu Ghraib remains one of the most damning exposés of U.S. military human rights violations ever published. In this talk, I attend to the multiple historical resonances with those Filipino bodies of a previous forgotten war who were also subject to torture methods like the water cure (now called “waterboarding”). I argue that Taguba’s ongoing critique of torture and U.S. wars in the Middle East have helped to redefine what speech is politically possible by a patriotic Filipino American from Hawaiʻi, a political subjectivity demarcated by an unique “double exposure” to hegemonic notions of U.S. benevolence and rescue.

Kim Compoc, PhD, is a lecturer in the departments of English and Ethnic Studies at UH Mānoa. The Center for Biographical Research awarded her the 2017 Biography Prize for best work in life writing. Her research has been supported by the Ford Foundation and the American Association of University Women.

Event Sponsor
Center for Biographical Research, Mānoa Campus

More Information
(808) 956-3774, biograph@hawaii.edu, http://www.facebook.com/CBRHawaii

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