Unfree Association: On Philippine Creative Writing and US Cultural Diplomacy

Abstract

The essay addresses the question “Does cultural diplomacy work?” by examining the International Writing Program (IWP) based in the University of Iowa as a site where US cultural diplomacy and Philippine creative writing converge. It studies the IWP in relation to the oldest writers’ workshop in the Philippines, the Silliman University Writers Workshop (SUNWW), which was patterned by its founders after the Iowa Writers’ Workshop (IWW). Demonstrating how SUNNW’s institutional history, particularly its ties to the IWP and IWW, tends to be written in the language of cultural diplomacy and apart from the history of the Philippines under US colonization, the essay draws connections between this decontextualized view of US–Philippine literary relations and the de-historicized creative writing pedagogy undergirded by American New Criticism that the SUNWW is known for. The impact of the IWP on Philippine creative writing shows how a cultural diplomacy program aids in advancing geopolitical relations favorable to the United States, especially when cultural diplomacy is regarded as an extended project whose outcomes only become manifest over time.