Section 2-1

This is a general education course that focuses on the life and works of José Rizal, the Philippines’ foremost national hero. Students will be engaged with reading materials that dissects Rizal’s historical context, his agency (i.e., ability to change the course of history), and his contributions. At the end of this course, the students are expected to be able to: (a) contextualize Jose Rizal’s life within the 19th century Philippines and global events; (b) understand how context shaped Rizal and his contemporary nationalists; (c) analyze how Rizal’s works, particularly the novels Noli me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, help form Filipino nationalism, and; (d) organize Rizal’s ideas into various themes (e.g., Rizal as novelist, historian, feminist, futurist, etc.). The Rizal course was controversially debated way back in the 1950s, before its teaching became mandated by law, i.e., R.A. 1425.