SOURCE: Lowe, Lisa. “Memories of Colonial Modernity: Dogeaters.” Amerasia Journal 24, no. 3 (1998): 161-64.

In the following essay, Lowe evaluates the themes of sexuality, politics, mass media, and postcolonial culture in Dogeaters. Lowe also lauds Hagedorn's theatrical adaptation of Dogeaters, complimenting the play for vibrantly capturing the spirit of the novel.

Colonialism produces its discontents for the colonized elite. They may hitchhike on the grand narrative of western civilization and at times even manage to insinuate themselves as illegal immigrants onto the project of modernity.

—Dilip M. Menon¹

Sex is always political. But there are also historical periods in which sexuality is more sharply contested and more overtly politicized. In such periods, the domain of erotic life is, in effect, renegotiated.

—Gayle Rubin²

In Jessica Hagedorn's 1990 novel Dogeaters, a Filipina immigrant in the United States remembers life in the Philippines during the Marcos era, where traces of three centuries of...