23/03/2026
[KADUNONG LECTURES]
Asog Allegories:
Trans Feminine Intimacy
in the Fractured Locus of Colonial Difference
Jaya Jacobo, PhD
In this talk, I revisit scenes in selected accounts from the colonial archive where the Asogโs "animacy" could only begin to degrade from the gendered aspects of her "animality". It is through this prose of degradation that I would also argue that such allegorical propositions on the Asogโs abjection open up the possibility for the trans feminine figure to aggravate further the aperture within the coloniality of gender, and this time through intimacy, whose definition is expanded here from a methodology of fulfilling desire to a capacity of building community, where trans folk could begin to delink themself from the abstractions of allegory, affirming a resistant inhabitation of what Marรญa Lugones would describe as the โfractured locusโ of โcolonial difference.โ While the Asog is extirpated from colonial society by way of her purported deviance, imperial narration could only describe the q***r dimensions of her participation in colonial modernity. To imagine the planetary reach of such ironic modes of resistance and reexistence, especially in the global south, I will compare the Asog with cognate figures in decolonial trans folklore, such as the Sarimbavy of Madagascar and the Tr****ti of Brazil, specifically Xica Manicongo, marking out paradigmatic moments in the prose where the Asog and her sisters are suspended in between figurations of dissidence and complicity, at the same time seeming to propose within the fracture a pedagogy of transgender difference.
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About the speaker
Jaya Jacobo is a trans feminist poet, dramaturg, scholar, and theorist teaching trans and q***r studies at the University of the Philippines in Diliman. She holds an AB-MA in Filipino Literature from the Ateneo de Manila University and a PhD in Comparative Literature from the State University of New York at Stony Brook through the J. William Fulbright Foundation and was Postdoctoral Fellow of the Global Grace: Gender and Cultures of Equality Programme funded by the United Kingdom Research Innovation, which allowed her to immerse in decolonial performance in the city of Rio de Janeiro. She has co-created alongside tr****ti and tr*******al women artists, scholars, and community workers in diverse sites throughout Brazil, including the Amazon, as well as with trans, q***r, and nonbinary Filipina/x/o performers from the Philippines and the Philippine diaspora abroad. Arasahas, her debut volume of poetry in Filipino (Savage Mind, 2023 & 2024; Pulso, 2025) was a Finalist for Best Book of Poetry in Filipino at the 2024 National Book Awards, and the translation in English by Christian Jil Benitez Arasahas: Poems from the Tropics (PAWA & Paloma, 2024) was a Finalist for the 2025 Lambda Award in Transgender Poetry. In the Autumn of 2025, she was Curator of Theory & Discourse at Sincerely Yours, The Philippines: Festival for Dance, Performance and Karaoke at Kรผnstler*innenhaus Mousonturm, in Frankfurt, Germany.
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March 27, 2026
2:30 โ 4:00
CSSP Health & Wellness Center
[KADUNONG LECTURES]
Asog Allegories:
Trans Feminine Intimacy
in the Fractured Locus of Colonial Difference
Jaya Jacobo, PhD
In this talk, I revisit scenes in selected accounts from the colonial archive where the Asogโs "animacy" could only begin to degrade from the gendered aspects of her "animality". It is through this prose of degradation that I would also argue that such allegorical propositions on the Asogโs abjection open up the possibility for the trans feminine figure to aggravate further the aperture within the coloniality of gender, and this time through intimacy, whose definition is expanded here from a methodology of fulfilling desire to a capacity of building community, where trans folk could begin to delink themself from the abstractions of allegory, affirming a resistant inhabitation of what Marรญa Lugones would describe as the โfractured locusโ of โcolonial difference.โ While the Asog is extirpated from colonial society by way of her purported deviance, imperial narration could only describe the q***r dimensions of her participation in colonial modernity. To imagine the planetary reach of such ironic modes of resistance and reexistence, especially in the global south, I will compare the Asog with cognate figures in decolonial trans folklore, such as the Sarimbavy of Madagascar and the Tr****ti of Brazil, specifically Xica Manicongo, marking out paradigmatic moments in the prose where the Asog and her sisters are suspended in between figurations of dissidence and complicity, at the same time seeming to propose within the fracture a pedagogy of transgender difference.
===
About the speaker
Jaya Jacobo is a trans feminist poet, dramaturg, scholar, and theorist teaching trans and q***r studies at the University of the Philippines in Diliman. She holds an AB-MA in Filipino Literature from the Ateneo de Manila University and a PhD in Comparative Literature from the State University of New York at Stony Brook through the J. William Fulbright Foundation and was Postdoctoral Fellow of the Global Grace: Gender and Cultures of Equality Programme funded by the United Kingdom Research Innovation, which allowed her to immerse in decolonial performance in the city of Rio de Janeiro. She has co-created alongside tr****ti and tr*******al women artists, scholars, and community workers in diverse sites throughout Brazil, including the Amazon, as well as with trans, q***r, and nonbinary Filipina/x/o performers from the Philippines and the Philippine diaspora abroad. Arasahas, her debut volume of poetry in Filipino (Savage Mind, 2023 & 2024; Pulso, 2025) was a Finalist for Best Book of Poetry in Filipino at the 2024 National Book Awards, and the translation in English by Christian Jil Benitez Arasahas: Poems from the Tropics (PAWA & Paloma, 2024) was a Finalist for the 2025 Lambda Award in Transgender Poetry. In the Autumn of 2025, she was Curator of Theory & Discourse at Sincerely Yours, The Philippines: Festival for Dance, Performance and Karaoke at Kรผnstler*innenhaus Mousonturm, in Frankfurt, Germany.
===
March 27, 2026
2:30 โ 4:00
CSSP Health & Wellness Center