A central aim of this course will be to find nuanced and ethical ways of talking about personal relations in colonial contexts that do not sublimate the structural and overt violences of colonial history, but that retrieve from within fictional and non-fictional texts and Pasifika archives micro-histories of being together: love, friendship, intermarriage, business partnership, scholarly collaboration, political alliance. We will begin with theoretical and historical essays about the poetics, politics, and materialities of relationships–varieties of intimacy within and across cultures, from pre-Christian forms to those formed in the shadows of interdictions around “race” and sexualities—and about new social and spatial formations in Oceania, including internal migrations, Pasifika diasporas, and settler societies. We will then approach Pasifika texts through their representations of relationships, successful or failed, considering what cohabitation, collaboration, or betrayals have to offer about the textures, determinations, and possibilities of everyday life in Oceania. We will be concerned as well with how literary/critical/archival work might participate in a legacy of forward-looking ethics of hope and dialogue, premised on the rights of indigenous peoples to self-determination and cultural continuity. Students will give reports and develop semester projects that deal with relationships as represented in Pasifika literatures and/or retrieved from historical archives; projects might concentrate on literary or archival materials, or approach relationships through mixed form presentation. Questions about the ethics of research—the “for whom and for what” of writing; problems of appropriation and inappropiateness–as well as different ways of presenting one’s findings, will be subjects of discussion as well.
SLOs: Students who complete this course should have:
–. Enhanced skills as critical/creative/appreciative readers of Oceanian literatures
–. Improved skills at historical, critical, and archival research
–. The ability to position arguments about “relationships” in Oceania within historical and critical traditions, particularly around race and gender
–. Familiarity with “relational” and “comparative” modes of thought
–. A reflective stance on questions of Native-Settler relationships in Oceanian contexts
PRIMARY TEXTS will include Patricia Grace, Cousins (Aotearoa); John Dominis Holt, Waimea Summer and essays from Recollections (Hawai‘i); Witi Ihimaera, The Uncle’s Story and stories from The New Net Goes Fishing (Aotearoa); Chantal Spitz, Island of Shattered Dreams (Tahiti); Albert Wendt, Sons for the Return Home and stories from Ancestry (Sāmoa/Aotearoa); Thomas Maunupau, Huakai Makaikai a Kaupo, Maui (Hawai‘i); and poems, plays, and documentaries by Lola Quan Batista, Sia Figiel, Vilsoni Hereniko, Konai Thaman, Larry Thomas, Joseph Veramu, John Waiko and others.
SECONDARY TEXTS will be available as PDFs on the Laulima course site, including personal essays, historical documents, entries from journals, and works by theorists and scholars such as Sarah Ahmed, Lauren Berlant, Peter Brunt, Greg Dvorak, Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault, Leela Gandhi, Edouard Glissant, Noelani Goodyear-Ka‘ōpua, Mary Kawena Pukui (and E. S. C. Handy), Damon Salesa, Rob Shilliam, Anne Stoler, Alice Te Punga Somerville, Albert Wendt.
REQUIREMENTS/GRADING: This course will require one or two oral reports on theoretical or historical topics; a short paper (five pages, 25%), and a semester paper involving research (50%); for the papers, there will be creative non-fiction or mixed-form options. A class participation grade (based on attendance, reports, class discussion, a few postings, a final presentation) will count for 25%.