Current Director and Staff

DR. HOPE SABANPAN-YU
Director
(2011- )

DR. HOPE SABANPAN YU assumed the directorship of the Cebuano Studies Center in June 2011. She earned her doctorate degree in Comparative Literature from the University of the Philippines (Diliman), her Master of Arts in English from the University of Calgary (Canada), and her Bachelor of Arts in English major in Applied Linguistics from the University of San Carlos. She was a SEASREP grant awardee at the Universitas Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta, a fellow at Cornell University’s School of Criticism and Theory and at the summer institute of Universiteit van Amsterdam. She teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses in literature, creative non-fiction, theory and criticism at the university.

A prolific writer, she is the author of four collections of poetry: Paglaum (2000), Ang Tingog ni Maria (2001), Beads (2002) and Mga Dad-onon sa Biyahe (2004). Her doctoral dissertation was given the Best Dissertation award from the University of the Philippines. Subsequently it was published by the University of the Philippines Press as Women’s Common Destiny: Maternal Representations in the Serialized Cebuano Fiction of Hilda Montaire and Austregelina Espina-Moore (2009) and was awarded the prestigious Lourdes Lontok-Cruz Award for research excellence last April 30, 2010. Her other scholarly publications are Bridging Cultures: The Philippine Migrant Woman in the Works of Jessica Hagedorn, Fatima Lim-Wilson and Sophia Romero (2011) and Institutionalizing Motherhood in Cebuano Literature (2011). She translated and edited Cebuano works into English such as Mila’s Mother (2008), a serialized novel by the late Austregelina Espina-Moore entitled Ang Inahan ni Mila; Men at Sea and other stories (2009), a translation of the short story collection of Gremer Chan Reyes, Crack Shot and other Stories (2010), a translation of the short stories of Ernesto D. Lariosa and Where the fire tree grows (2010), a novel by Austregelina Espina-Moore. She has also edited two anthologies of interviews with Cebuano writers, Kapulongan: Conversations with Cebuano Writers (2008), and Kulokabildo: Dialogues with Cebuano Writers (2009).

An advocate for the promotion and preservation of Cebuano culture and heritage, she served as Central Visayas coordinator of the National Committee on Literary Arts from 2008-2011. She is current secretary of the Women Studies Association of the Philippines (WSAP) and chairs the Women in Literary Arts (WILA-Cebu). She also holds membership in local organizations such as the Bathalan-ong Halad sa Dagang (Bathalad) and in international organizations such as the Modern Language Association (MLA), Association of Asian Studies (AAS), PEN America, PEN Canada, and Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (MIRCI).

Jesel Monguez
Librarian

Raphael Dean Polinar
Office Assistant

Jose Antonio Dasig, Jr.
Research Assistant