Vina A. Lanzona
Future Chair of the Philippine Studies Group at the Association for Asian Studies Principal Initiator and Core Member, The Martial Law Museum and Library, Ateneo de Manila University
she/her
Degrees: Ph.D.: University of Wisconsin at Madison (2000); MA: New School for Social Research (1994); BA: Ateneo de Manila (1989)
Interests: Southeast Asia, Imperialism & Colonialism, Gender & Sexuality
Other Fields: US Empire, Colonial and Postcolonial Southeast Asia, Colonial and Modern Philippines, Imperial Spain, Women and Revolution
Email: vlanzona@hawaii.edu
Phone: (808) 956-6769
Office:
Sakamaki B208
Accepting new graduate students? Depends; contact me to discuss
Background
Born and raised in Manila, Philippines, I’m considered a “Martial Law Baby,” having grown up under Martial Law. And then as a student at the Ateneo de Manila University, I was part of our People Power Revolution that ousted the dictator Ferdinand Marcos! After college, I worked briefly for the government under President Aquino, then came to the United States to pursue graduate studies, completing an M.A. in Historical Studies at the New School for Social Research in New York, and a Ph.D. in Southeast Asian History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I spent most of my twenties living in New York, eventually moving to Honolulu to join the History faculty at the University of Hawaiʻi-Mānoa (UHM). I previously served as the Director of the Center for Philippine Studies at the School of Pacific and Asian Studies at UHM (2011-2015) and was a Research Fellow at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University in the Fall 2025.
My first book was inspired by my twin passions for studying revolution and the role of women in political change in the modern Philippines. I co-edited a volume expanding this theme to women in Southeast Asia. My current projects re-examine the Philippines’ historical relationship with Spain through studies of the social history of marriage and divorce under Spanish colonialism and the role of Filipinos and Filipino-Americans in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).
Course Offerings
- HIST 306: Modern Southeast Asia
- Women and Revolution
- Iberian Colonialism in Asia and the Pacific
Representative Publications
- Co-editor, The Philippines Reader (Duke University Press, forthcoming 2027).
- Women Warriors in Southeast Asia (co-edited with Frederik Rettig, Routledge, 2020). Announcement from UHM Asian Studies Program.
- Amazons of the Huk Rebellion: Gender, Sex, and Revolution in the Philippines (University of Wisconsin Press, 2009).
- “Capturing the Huk Amazons:representing women warriors in the Philippines, 1940s-1950s,” South East Asia Research 17, no. 2, pp. 133-174 (London: School of Oriental and African Studies).
- “Women Warriors” (co-edited with Professor Tobias Rettig, Singapore Management University), IIAS (International Institute of Asian Studies) Newsletter Special Issue No. 48 (Summer 2008).
- “Romancing a Revolutionary: The Life of Celia Mariano-Pomeroy,” in Lives at the Margin: Biographies of Filipinos Obscure, Ordinary, and Heroic, ed. Alfred W. McCoy (Quezon City, 2000).
