“Writing from the Margins: Diasporic, Mixed Race, and Queer Kanaka Maoli Literatures”
This course will analyze fiction, poetry, photography, comics, mo‘olelo, chants, journals, newspapers, film, and essays to examine how mixed race, queer, and diasporic Kānaka Maoli produce new modes of being and kinship. These new modes will also help us think through literature’s ability to represent and articulate who, when, where, and what the lāhui (the Hawaiian people and/ or nation) is.
Potential texts include:
Mary Kawena Pukui, The Polynesian Family System in Ka‘ū, Hawai‘i (excerpts)
Queen Lili‘uokalani (trans), An Account of the Creation of the World According to Hawaiian Tradition (excerpts)
Sloane Leong, Prism Stalker
Matthew Kaopio, Hawaiian Family Legends
Moses Goods, Lovey Lee
Kristiana Kahakauwila, This is Paradise
No‘u Revilla, Ask the Brindled
Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio, Remembering Our Intimacies (excerpts)
Adrienne Keahi Pao, Hawaiian Family Portraits
Potential Assignments Include:
- A photo essay
- A comic
- A mo‘okū‘auhau (personal genealogy)
- A close reading