111-216 Postcolonialism in Australia and the Pacific

Note

Available as 111-316 at 3rd-year level.

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Subject Description

This subject examines the visual arts, especially films and paintings produced in or about Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Japan, America and Pacific Island nations through postcolonial perspectives. We will examine visual material relating to early contact histories including work produced by artists on board the voyages of exploration of the eighteenth century and films which deal with imperialism in the Pacific. European representations of the Pacific as a site of pleasure will be considered through material which exotises and erotises the Pacific such as accounts contained in Cook's journals, Elvis Presley's films set in Hawaii, and popular representations of French Polynesia and Australia. Captivity narratives about white women such as Eliza Fraser and reverse captivity narratives represented in paintings such as "Poedua" and films such as "Jedda" will be analysed. Issues surrounding the subject of women in prisoner of war camps during the second world war will be covered. The representation of New Guinea in colonial literature, photography and contemporary films will be studied and the depiction of Maori in academic painting will be examined. The work of contemporary artists such as Tracey Moffat, Marlon Fuentes, Destiny Deakin and Gordon Bennett will be discussed.

Assessment

Written work which may comprise class papers, essays, visual tests or take-home examinations totalling about 5000 words.

Prescribed Texts

• Gananath Obeyesekere, The Apotheosis of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking in the Pacific. Princeton University Press, New Jersey 1992.
• Robert Dixon, Writing the Colonial Adventure, Race Gender and National in Anglo-Australian Popular Fiction. Cambridge University Press, Melbourne 1995.
• Bell L, Colonial Constructs: European Images of Maori 1840-1914. MUP 1992.
• Young, Robert J.C, Colonial Desire, Hyubridity in Theory, Culture and Race. Routledge, London 1995.