Pacific Islands Writing The Postcolonial Literatures of Aotearoa/New Zealand and Oceania

by Keown, Michelle

• ISBN13: 9780199276455
• ISBN10: 0199276455
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780191527982
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-11-24
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• More Book Details

Summary

The Oxford Studies in Postcolonial Literatures series offers stimulating and accessible introductions to definitive topics and key genres and regions within the rapidly diversifying field of postcolonial literary studies in English. The first book of its kind, Pacific Islands Writing offers a broad-ranging introduction to the postcolonial literatures of the Pacific region. Drawing upon metaphors of oceanic voyaging, Michelle Keown takes the reader on a discursive journey through a variety of literary and cultural contexts in the Pacific, exploring the Indigenous literatures of Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia, and also investigating a range of European or Western writing about the Pacific, from the adventure fictions of Herman Melville, R. L. Stevenson, and Jack London to the Pakeha European) settler literatures of Aotearoa/New Zealand. The book explores the relevance of 'international' postcolonial theoretical paradigms to a reading of Pacific literatures, but it also offers a region-specific analysis of key authors and texts, drawing upon Indigenous Pacific literary theories, and sketching in some of the key socio-historical trajectories that have inflected Pacific writing. Well-established IndigenousPacific authors such as Albert Wendt, Witi Ihimaera, Alan Duff, and Patricia Grace are considered alongside emerging writers such as Sia Figiel, Caroline Sinavaiana-Gabbard, and Dan Taulapapa McMullin. The book focuses primarily upon Pacific literature in English - the language used by the majority of Pacific writers - but also breaks new ground in examining the growing corpus of francophone and hispanophone writing in French Polynesia, New Caledonia, and Easter Island/Rapa Nui.

Author Biography

Michelle Keown was born and raised in Aotearoa/New Zealand. She is currently Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Edinburgh and has published widely on Maori, Pacific Island and New Zealand writing.

Table of Contents

List of Maps and Figures	p. xi
Pacific Islands Timeline	p. xii
Introduction: Voyaging Through the Pacific	p. 1
'Mapping' Pacific literatures	p. 1
Defining Oceania: from 'South Seas' to 'South Pacific'	p. 11
Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia: the 'culture areas' of the Pacific	p. 13
Key concepts and theoretical frameworks	p. 17
Chapter overview	p. 25
Europeans in the Pacific	p. 28
European representations of the Pacific in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries	p. 29
Disease and degeneration: the impact of social Darwinism on fin-de-siecle Pacific writing	p. 39
Settler fictions in Aotearoa/New Zealand	p. 51
Warfare and Westernization: Narratives of Conflict, Resistance, and Social Change	p. 68
Colonial endeavours and Indigenous responses in the early twentieth century: inscribing resistance	p. 70
War in the Pacific	p. 80
Maori warrior culture	p. 99
The 1970s and Beyond: The Emergence of the 'New' Pacific Literatures in English	p. 109
Papua New Guinea	p. 111
Fiji and the University of the South Pacific	p. 116
Hawai'i and the 'American Pacific'	p. 126
The Francophone Pacific	p. 133
Easter Island/Rapa Nui: Hispanophone Pacific literature	p. 137
The Maori Renaissance and the emergence of Maori literature in English	p. 138
Orality, Textuality, and Memory: The Language of Pacific Literatures	p. 147
Pacific orthographies, contact languages, and the rise of English	p. 148
Oceanic oral and textual culture	p. 162
Mythology and cultural memory	p. 178
Conclusion: Pacific Diasporas	p. 185
Globalization and Pacific diaspora culture	p. 186
Pacific literary culture since 1990	p. 196
Contemporary developments: drama and film	p. 207
Notes	p. 226
Glossary and List of Acronyms	p. 231
References	p. 234
Index	p. 253
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