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