Vā Moana Reading Group 02 2019

For 2019 the Vā Moana Reading Group will host four talanoa looking at various aspects of being in diaspora. In each talanoa we will bring together three texts spanning academic texts, think pieces, films and other artworks. The second reading group for 2019 will focus on the theme of ‘Being in relation’.

In 1996, Albert Wendt wrote that the post-colonial body, is a body “’becoming,’ defining itself, clearing a space for itself among and alongside other bodies”. He continued,

“It is a blend, a new development, which I consider to be in heart, spirit and muscle, Pacific: a blend in which influences from outside (even the English Language) have been indigenised, absorbed in the image of the local and national, and in turn have altered the national and local.”

Wendt was defining a new kind of Pacific or Moana body, one which had the ability to hold the tensions of its own difference. The idea of being in relation to something, some one or an other is the focus of this session. We will be discussing three texts: Albert Wendt, Tatauing the Post-Colonial Body, originally published in Span 42-43 (April-October 1996): 15-29; Eve Tuck & C. Ree, Glossary of Haunting, in Handbook of Autoethnography, 639-658, 2013; and Timetraveller by Lyla June (feat. Desirae Harp) https://youtu.be/ulK_GE9XjO8.

The reading group will be held on Thursday 9 May , 10am—1pm in the Vā Moana room WE425, level 4 WE Building, St Paul Street.

This is open to Māori and Pacific postgraduate students as well as extended aiga and those in their final year of their undergraduate degrees. Spaces are limited so please RSVP to lana.lopesi@aut.ac.nz.