How do we think about the modern Pacific Ocean world? Here in California, we border this vast waterscape, which is larger than all the world's remaining oceans combined and which could easily fit all of the planet's landmasses within it. What lessons can we learn from the region's diverse and dynamic island cultures, its entangled histories, and its urgent contemporary issues? How has the Pacific impacted ideas about modernity elsewhere in the world? And what unique Oceanian modernities are emerging from the region? Engaging with a rich array of literary and performance texts, films, and artworks from the 19th to the 21st centuries, we will consider different ways in which the Pacific has been imagined. We will further explore how Pacific Islander scholars, artists, and activists have drawn on their cultural traditions and knowledge systems to create new works that respond to current challenges facing the region, including colonialism, globalization, tourism, migration, climate change, militarization, and nuclearization.
3 units · Letter (ABCD/NP)
How do we think about the modern Pacific Ocean world? Here in California, we border this vast waterscape, which is larger than all the world's remaining oceans combined and which could easily fit all of the planet's landmasses within it. What lessons can we learn from the region's diverse and dynamic island cultures, its entangled histories, and its urgent contemporary issues? How has the Pacific impacted ideas about modernity elsewhere in the world? And what unique Oceanian modernities are emerging from the region? Engaging with a rich array of literary and performance texts, films, and artworks from the 19th to the 21st centuries, we will consider different ways in which the Pacific has been imagined. We will further explore how Pacific Islander scholars, artists, and activists have drawn on their cultural traditions and knowledge systems to create new works that respond to current challenges facing the region, including colonialism, globalization, tourism, migration, climate change, militarization, and nuclearization.
Offered in Spring 2026 at Stanford University.