ABSTRACT
Nick Joaquin’s Cave and Shadows (1983) revolves around the mysterious surfacing of a body within an ancient cave in the city of Manila. I am interested in what I suggest are the spectral figures that question historical justice and that embody both remembering and forgetting. Specifically, I examine not only the specters of colonization but also the unsettled past of the infamous Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines. As such, this chapter first provides a theoretical discussion of spectrality and its correlation with trauma and belatedness. It also studies the difference between mourning and mid-mourning, the latter understood as a way of ethically re-assessing historical losses. Second, it proposes two readings of the revenant, Nenita Coogan. In the third part, which analyses manifestations of ecological spectrality, I interrogate new ways of thinking about trauma in “disaster cultures.” Consequently, in the fourth part, I investigate the compatibility of Magic Realism and postcolonial trauma in decolonized societies. Finally, the chapter considers the spectrality of the Marcos Regime and the inclusion of dictatorial eras as legitimate areas of investigation in Trauma Studies.
