I am Jonathan P. Jurilla, currently working as Assistant Professor at the University of the Philippines Visayas, Miagao, Iloilo campus. I am a faculty member of the Division of Humanities, College of Arts and Sciences. I teach Literature subjects.
I have been a faculty member of UPV since 1996. 6 months after I got my Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature, I got hired as a substitute instructor at the Division of Humanities. There have been no Master of Arts program related to my field of study here in Iloilo. I was not allowed to go on study leave then because the University was suffering from financial difficulties and so I decided to take up a Master of Arts in Education major in English as a Second Language at UPV in 1999. I finished it in 2002. By then I was allowed to take up units of MA Comparative Literature at UP Diliman. I got accepted into their PhD in Comparative Literature after taking up 12 units of MA courses but then again, I got recalled by UPV since I need to secure my tenure first. And so i went back teaching.
Of course I enjoy teaching. I love the courses I teach. I am usually assigned to teach literary theory and popular literature courses. I am a little paranoid, though. I’m not sure if students enjoy my teaching approach. Although i regularly receive ‘Very Good’ and ‘Excellent’( occasionally ) ratings from them after the end of the semester, I also receive regular groans and worried faces every time I assign supplemental readings and when I give exams. There are students who evade me in the lobby. But there are those who become my close friends and those who do become close friends to me until now.
Aside from teaching i also have had administrative loads and research.
I used to be the Faculty Adviser of Ang Pagbutlak, the Official Student Publication of the College of Arts and Sciences. I held the post for two years. For the next two years, i was appointed as Faculty in Charge of the Language Program and at present, I function as the Chairman of the Division of Humanities.
As to research, I have varied areas of interest. My first research endeavor was a collaboration with my colleague, Prof. John Barrios. It was a research on komiks serialized in the Hiligaynon magazine. After that, I got myself into the study of the works of Leoncio Deriada, Western Visayas’ popular fictionist in English. I also finished a research on Western Visayan Poetry that use Hiligaynon-based Filipino as Medium. Recently, i got myself into an exploratory research on 3D animation using Blender as medium. Exploratory because this is the first research in UPV about animation.
I also engage myself in creative work and I won a few awards and publications. The highest award I got is a 3rd place in the short story writing contest, Hiligaynon category, in the Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for literature. This is a national award. I got first prizes in essay writing contests but they are just regional awards sponsored by the Sentro ng Wikang Filipino. Most recently, I became a finalist in Animahenasyon, Pinoy animation festival sponsored by the Animation Council of the Philippines Inc. This year, I received a special citation award for my short animation, Samtang Bilog ang Bulan.
Although I love Literature, I love graphic arts and animation even more. It must be obvious by now that my career seems to be shifting into animation. Well, I guess, I have finally found my calling. This doesn’t mean, however, that I am leaving literature and culture studies. These latter ones will remain an integral part of me. And i just realize that it is possible to engage in cultural research and producing animation at the same time, at least, in my present position as faculty member of a University.
