RLFR 234
Francophone Oceania: The Other Side of the Postcard
Last Offered Spring 2024
Division I
This course is not offered in the current catalog

Manava i Te Ao Ma’ohi! Tongan-Fijian author Epeli Hau’ofa writes: “Centuries before Europeans entered the Pacific, in the days when boundaries were not imaginary lines in the ocean but points of entry that were constantly negotiated and even contested, the sea was open to anyone who could navigate a way through.” Of critical importance to Oceanian communities and scholarship today is the project of remembering and re-membering the stories, knowledges, travel routes, and more-than-human ecologies that have crisscrossed the vast aqueous landscapes of this “other” side of the globe. This course is a comprehensive survey of the literature, modern history, and aesthetics that inform the field of contemporary Francophone Oceanian Studies. Major concepts in Indigenous Oceanian philosophy and genealogies of thought (from Ma’ohi, Kanak, and Ni-Vanuatu communities in particular), European imperialism and racial politics, gender and sexuality, maritime knowledges, the French nuclear agenda and climate fiction will be studied. Students will use multimedia formats and storytelling techniques to cross-examine narrative development, philosophy, and Oceanian history from a comparative perspective. Texts may include: Déwé Gorodé’s Sous les cendres des conques (1985), Chantal T. Spitz’s L’île des rêves écrasés (1991), Claudine Jacques’ L’Âge du perroquet-banane, Parabole païenne (2002), Ari’irau’s Matamimi ou la vie nous attend (2006), Nicholas Kurtovitch’s Dans le ciel splendide (2015), Titaua Peu’s Pina (2016), and Titaua Porcher’s Hina, Maui et compagnie (2018) among others. Conducted in French.