Volume 26, Numbers 1-2
This issue introduces a range of theoretical possibilities for contemporary Oceania, moving between Western and Pacific ontologies and epistemologies. From the political to the literary, the contributors ask: “how can we theorize Oceanian modernity, ensuring that we reflect and engage without imposing Western models or privileging Western experiences?” They explore, in great depth, what is at stake in the myriad names, such as “South Pacific,” “the South Seas,” and the “Pacific Islands,” often imposed by colonial power structures, which mark the region. Collectively, their responses show how the work of Oceania’s theorists presents a set of challenges and opportunities for those who do not affiliate their work with this under-theorized region of the world.
Contents
MAEBH LONG
Introduction: Oceania in Theory
SUDESH MISHRA
Acts of Rememory in Oceania
SINAVAIANA GABBARD
Samoan Literature and the Wheel of Time: Cartographies of the Vā
MAEBH LONG
Vanua in the Anthropocene: Relationality and Sea Level Rise in Fiji
DAVID O’DONNELL
‘Where Will This River Flow?’: Modernity, Indigeneity and Eco-crisis in the Theatre of Miria George
PAUL LYONS
John Dominis Holt’s Kanaka Maoli Modernism
MATTHEW HAYWARD
Movies and Pacific Modernities in Wendt and Subramani
LEA LANI KINIKINI KAUVAKA
Oceanian Pain in the Nuclear Epoch, Or: How I Learned to Love Epeli Hau‘ ofas Kisses in the Nederends
COREY WAKELING
‘Faecebook’: Ironies of Pastoral Narcissism