Pacific Literature & Pacific Studies
“So vast, so fabulously varied a scatter of islands, nations, cultures, mythologies and myths, so dazzling a creature, Oceania deserves more than an attempt at mundane fact; only the imagination in free flight can hope—if not to contain her—to grasp some of her shape, plumage and pain.” ~Albert Wendt, “Towards a New Oceania”
The imagination, creativity and arts have been encouraged as key to the decolonization of Pacific Studies. In this course we will look at the critical and creative intersection between Pacific Literature and Pacific Studies. Pacific Studies is the interdisciplinary study of the Pacific Islands region that includes its geography, cultures, economies, histories, politics and arts whereas Pacific Literature refers to fiction, poetry and other creative writing from the Pacific Islands or Oceania.
Pacific Studies and Pacific Literature often overlap, and many scholars and creative writers in and outside these fields cross back and forth between the two. Haunani-Kay Trask, Albert Wendt, Konai Helu Thaman and others write creatively and critically, and see doing so as vital to their identities as Pacific Islanders and necessary for the growth of both fields. We will read creative and scholarly works in the interdisciplinary field of Pacific Studies, as well as Pacific Literature, with a focus on writing that combines the creative and the scholarly. We will critically analyze these works and attempt to answer questions, such as: how is indigenous Pacific Literature decolonizing Pacific Studies and vice versa?; how are indigenous methodologies that are creative employed in Pacific Studies scholarship and why is this significant? Students will engage in conversation with and write their own critical and creative responses to these questions in the assigned readings and overall course themes.
Assignments (subject to change):
Proposal for research paper (5 pages)
Research paper (20 pages): students will develop their own Pacific methodology based upon 1 or 2 Pacific texts from class, which will inform their research topic. A portion of their paper can be creative, either poetry or prose that is essential to the overall theme of the paper.
Presentation on research paper
Short papers & reflections (3-5 pages) on assigned readings, shared in class and possibly on a class blog.
Class facilitation: each student will be required to facilitate class discussion once during the semester.
Readings:
Brady, Ivan. 2004. “In Defense of the Sensual: Meaning Construction in Ethnography and Poetics.” Qualitative Inquiry 10 (4): 622-44.
Flores, Toni. 1982. “Field Poetry.” Anthropology and Humanism 7 (1): 16-22.
Hauʻofa, Epeli. 2008. We Are the Ocean: Selected Works. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press.
Hereniko, Vilsoni and Rob Wilson (eds.), 1999. Inside Out: Literature, Cultural Politics, and Identity in the New Pacific. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield.
Hoʻomanawanui, Kuʻualoha. 2014. Voices of Fire: reweaving the literary lei of Pele and Hiʻiaka. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Kihleng, Emelihter. 2015. Menginpehn Lien Pohnpei: a poetic ethnography of urohs (Pohnpeian skirts). PhD diss., Victoria University of Wellington.
Pulu, Teena Brown. 2007. Kakai Tonga ʻI ʻOkalani Nuʻu Sila: Tongan Generations in Auckland, New Zealand. PhD diss., University of Waikato.
Teaiwa, Teresia. 2010. “What Remains to Be Seen: Reclaiming the Visual Roots of Pacific Literature.” PMLA 125, no. 3: 730-36.
Thaman, Konai Helu. 2003. “Decolonizing Pacific Studies: Indigenous Perspectives, Knowledge and Wisdom in Higher Education.” The Contemporary Pacific 15 (1): 1-17.
_______________. 2008. “Nurturing Relationships and Honouring Responsibilities: A Pacific Perspective.” International Review of Education 54 (3/4): 459-73.
Wendt, Albert. 1983. “Towards a New Oceania.” A Pacific Islands Collection: Seaweeds and Constructions 7: 71-85.
Literary Texts (subject to change):
Figiel, Sia. 1996. Where We Once Belonged. New York: Kaya.
Perez, Craig Santos. 2014. from Unincorporated Territory [ guma’]. Richmond, California: Omnidawn.
Wendt, Albert. 2011. The Mangoʻs Kiss. Auckland: Random House NZ.
selections from Carroll, Jeffrey, Brandy Nālani McDougall and Georganne Nordstrom (eds.), 2015. Huihui: Navigating Art and Literature in the Pacific. Honolulu: UHP.
*Additional readings TBA
Film: The Orator/O Le Tulafale. 2011. Tusi Tamasese, dir. Blueskin Films Ltd.