Belen D. Calingacion, PhD, one of the country’s experts in oral interpretation (OI) and UP Diliman’s (UPD) very own, fittingly opened the 65th anniversary celebration of the UPD Department of Speech Communication and Theatre Arts (DSCTA) with her retirement lecture on Feb. 12, at the Teatro Hermogenes Ylagan in Pavilion 3 of Palma Hall.
DSCTA Chair Oscar T. Serquiña Jr. said, “It is indeed apt to begin our celebrations for the 65 years of the DSCTA with a lecture from a colleague who personifies some of the virtues that we in the DSCTA seek to uphold: persistence, service, and praxis.”
Fondly called “Ma’am Belen,” Calingacion began her lecture by introducing its title. “The title of my lecture is The Pheno Me: Marking Milestones at 65, Recollections of My Life in UP.”
After playfully flipping her hair, one of her signature gestures, she asked the audience, “Have you heard of the word ‘phenoself?’” and added, “That is where I coined the words ‘pheno me.’ This is a new exploration of the concept of self, based on the experience of the person. The ‘me’ and ‘myself’ all investigating the nature of the realm of ‘self’ sphere.”
According to the abstract of the study of Giuseppe Riva, PhD, PHENOSELF: Self as a Phenomenon published on the American Psychological Association website and accessed on Feb. 14, PHENOSELF is about “understanding the concept of self as a phenomenal concept.” Furthermore, “Phenoself saw self as a kind of impression or experience of ‘me as myself’ that specifically triggers the application of the concept. In line with psychology and philosophy, it studied self-experience as ‘me-ness’ or ‘mine-ness.’ This involved looking at relationships between self-experience and cognitive phenomenology to process conceptual thoughts, bodily awareness, bodily ownership, and bodily movement.”
In her lecture, Calingacion shared her academic journey and seasons in her life from her family background to her three decades’ stay in UPD.
Serquiña said the lecture “traces her three decades as an academic and administrator in the national university.”
Calingacion recalled her times as department chair, sharing that being chairperson is not an easy task. She was DSCTA chair for four terms, from 2004 to 2012, and from 2018 to 2021.
“Chairing the department is not something you learn and then you’re good to go. It is a process of learning, relearning, falling, and learning again,” she said.
In all the time she was sharing her life in UPD, Calingacion would mention all the help she received from her DSCTA colleagues whom she called her family, especially when her parents passed away only three months apart, followed by her only brother two years later.
In spite of her personal struggles, Calingacion powered through her academic and administrative work. She credits her DSCTA family for their help in making her press on with her work.
Calingacion also shared her journey of enhancing her expertise by shifting from OI to performance studies (PS).
Serquiña said, “Ma’am Belen is a staunch advocate of OI and PS. For her, these are central to the disciplinary thought and pedagogical operations of speech communication. For a stretch of time, she almost singlehandedly pushed for PS as a paradigm that can potentially turn things around for speech communication, a discipline that perpetually grapples with its own longstanding existential crises, and that can prospectively bridge the whatever epistemic and methodological gaps exist between speech communication and theatre arts.”
Calingacion said, “The point of this narrative is that I found my niche in PS, which I introduced to my students in early 2002 when it was unheard of.”
She said she was first introduced to PS in an international conference in Germany where she presented part of her PhD dissertation.
“It was an eye opener. It was exciting prospect to make my academic pursuits meaningful. I watched performance beyond my imagination, fresh conception of what performance is all about,” Calingacion explained.
She was happy to note that moving forward, she presently is teaching two courses on PS at DSCTA.
As she closed her lecture, Calingacion said recalling the seasons in her life, “It provided me a sense of nostalgia, of a deep feeling, because these friends over my life are woven into the tapestry of my existence… a constant reminder that I was not alone in my endeavors.”
After Calingacion’s lecture, UPD Office of Anti-Sexual Harassment coordinator, Teresa Paula S. de Luna, PhD, Calingacion’s DSCTA colleague and former student, and Mary Janette L. Pinzon, PhD, an associate professor at the DSCTA and close friend, shared their memories of and experiences with their Ma’am Belen.
The lecture was one of the events lined up for February as the DSCTA prepared various activities for its six-month long celebration.
The DSCTA was established in May 1959. It was then known as the Department of Speech and Drama (DSD). The UP Board of Regents approved its name change from DSD to DSCTA in 1974.