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ANTH 235g - The Changing Pacific: Culture, History and Politics of the New South Seas
Professor Nancy Lutkehaus
This course examines societies of the island Pacific region traditionally identified as Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia and studies how they have changed since the time of European contact to the present day. The course fulfills a General Education requirement in Non-Western Civilizations through an in-depth examination of the Melanesian cultures of the highlands as well as Manam and the Trobriand Islands of Papua New Guinea, the Polynesian cultures of Hawaii, Samoa, Tahiti and Tonga, and the Marshall Islands in Micronesia. It also examines historical processes of exploration, contact, colonization, and nationalism in the wider Pacific region, including relations with the United States, New Zealand, Australia, and Indonesia in order to provide a context for understanding contemporary political, economic and social relations between these small Pacific island societies and their larger Pacific Rim neighbors and overseers.
Themes to be examined in the course include the different perceptions of contact between Europeans and indigenous Pacific islanders, different perceptions of Pacific cultures among missionaries, explorers and anthropologists, indigenous forms of political economy, material culture/artifacts, forms of exchange, men's and women's roles in exchange, male and female initiation practices, millenarian movements and cargo cults, migration, changing notions of personhood and identity, economic development and change, the impact of tourism, the contemporary development of independence movements, and the revival of traditional forms of cultural identity, such as tattooing and the hula as well as the influence of Pacific cultures on American popular culture.
Lecture:
TTh 11:00 - 12:20 pm
MDA 140:
M 4:00 - 5:50 pm
T 2:00 - 3:50 pm
W 12:00 - 1:50 pm
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