Although here in DuPage we are very far from the Pacific, this class will help you become literate with regards to the cultures and histories of Pacific island societies. Each person living in the Pacific is part of an ongoing story of...
moreAlthough here in DuPage we are very far from the Pacific, this class will help you become literate with regards to the cultures and histories of Pacific island societies. Each person living in the Pacific is part of an ongoing story of movement, settlement, and adaptation to island environments that has produced remarkable histories of cultural accomplishment and political struggle. Although relatively small in population, the Pacific islands span one-third of the globe, encompass about one fourth of the world’s languages, and include some of its most unique ecological zones. The Pacific has been an object of western world interest and fantasy since the earliest days of exploration, and continues to generate all kinds of exotic images, whether of paradise, of “disappearing” cultures, or threatened ecologies.
In this course, we will be concerned both with the experience of indigenous communities and with representations of the Pacific generated inside and outside the region. Pacific prehistory of travel began with Pleistocene movement of Homo sapiens sapiens, continued with Lapita colonization which gave way to the far-flung voyages of Polynesian navigators. Pacific indigenous settlement was then followed by waves of European explorers, missionaries, and colonizers. These movements have produced dramatic, and often tragic, stories of cultural encounter and transformation. The experience of Pacific communities, past and present, has much to teach us about living in communities that contend with global flows of people, culture, and capital. Today island travelers continue to move through national capitals and metropolitan centers from Honolulu to Los Angeles and Auckland, fashioning new forms and identities that extend the boundaries of the Pacific.
