Universal Constructs in Selected Novels of Filipino Diaspora Writers: Towards a Model for Teaching Diaspora Novels

This research work attempted to analyze how five Filipino contemporary novelists depicted, recreated, interrogated or problematized the diaspora experience in their works using cultural studies and post-colonial frameworks. The novels analyzed on this study are Merlinda Bobis' Fish-Hair Woman (2012; Ninotchka Rosca's State of War (1998); Arlene Chai's Eating Fire, Drinking Water (1997); Cecilia Manguerra-Brainard's When the Rainbow Goddess Wept (1995) and Jessica Hagedorn's Dogeaters (1990).