Welcome, English 381 students. This guide will provide you with Library resources that support your Hawai'i in Literature and Film course and your research essay. From the menus on the left, you'll find sample searches; topical and required books and ebooks; links to scholarly journal articles; instructions on how to search for articles; and more.
Ancient Hawai’i. Kingdom of Hawai’i. The Sandwich Islands. The Hawaiian Islands. Paradise of the Pacific. What we know today as Hawai’i has been classified and reclassified over time by many different peoples with varied (and often competing) goals for the land’s future ranging from naval port, sugar plantations, Christian community, to tourism destination. One recurring theme throughout literature and history is people’s interest in changing Hawaii into not just something they can control but something else entirely, even as those same writers and explorers acknowledge the magnetic force that Hawaii holds for those who visit. For example, a young and unknown reporter by the name of Mark Twain arrived in Hawai’i in March of 1866 on assignment for the Sacramento Union. His original stay was scheduled for one month. He stayed for four.
And yet, Hawai’i existed long before Captain James Cook stepped foot on the islands. Rich with a language, government, religion, stories/storytelling, traditions, foods, leisure activities, and more, Hawai’i was anything but a blank canvas. Native Hawaiians have held fast to their culture throughout centuries in the face of colonialism, imperialism, overthrowing of their monarchy, and eventual forced annexation to the United States. Native Hawaiians still produce literature and film that reflect their histories and seek to rewrite a history imposed onto them, putting back into view that which has been erased. This course will survey and explore the back-and-forth relationship of those looking to assess Hawai’i from the outside with those depicting Hawai’i from the inside as they know it, live it, and experienced it—with a few texts that readily acknowledge an “in-between” status somewhat characteristic of Hawaiian families today with interracial marriages becoming popular on the islands over time or an author rediscovering their roots in the islands. Placing nineteenth U.S. travel narratives alongside nineteenth-century folk legends written by King Kamehameha, and continuing that style of pairing throughout the course, will enable us to see a more panoramic view of Hawai’i that exemplifies frequent American and European needs to control the narrative while Hawaiian voices swiftly speak back to counter that narrative and redirect the focus onto the authenticities of their culture. In an effort to provide a long view, this course will spotlight different texts across the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries including travel narratives, letters of correspondence, short stories, memoirs, mythology, written histories, novels, and films (dramatized as well as documentaries) from Hawaiian, American, and British voices.
McGunigal, L. (2024) ENG 381: Whose paradise? Claimed and reclaimed Hawai'i in literature and film [Syllabus] Missouri Southern State University
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