This course will examine
the ways that contemporary Hawaiʻi-based
writers intervene in culture and politics through their creative productions.
As such, the texts we read will address today’s relevant issues, including
homelessness, drug abuse, the destruction & protection of sacred places,
identity, Hawaiian sovereignty, climate change, development, and food systems,
among others. To focus our inquiry, we will pay special attention to how Hawaiʻi and Hawaiʻi’s
people are represented in these texts, which will include novels, short
fiction, poetry, spoken-word, essays, and blogs. As a tool for making authors’
interventions in culture more visible, we will return again and again to asking:
What kinds of imagined futures for Hawaiʻi
do these representations make possible or impossible?
This is a writing intensive
course, so in addition to honing our reading skills and learning to
contextualize contemporary creative productions, we will also devote class time
to developing our ability to make our own interventions by writing with
clarity, specificity, and passion about literature.
Required Texts
Written in the Sky
by Matthew Kaopio
Tweakerville
by Alexei Melnick
Excerpts from Hawaiʻi Review
Others tbd!