Pacific Worlds: critical inquiry in Oceania

This course introduces students to the Pacific region and to the wealth of Pacific knowledge, resources, and institutions at ANU and in Canberra more broadly. Students will have the opportunity to learn through hands-on engagement with key historical, archival and museum collections and other institutions in Canberra. Pacific Worlds will be explored in seminar format and in dialogue with selected scholars and policymakers, and through visits to institutions such as the National Library, National Archives, and National Gallery of Australia. It will provide students with an exciting opportunity to experience the ways in which the Pacific has been crucial to the development and contemporary cultural, scholarly, and political priorities of former colonial powers, including Australia. The course will highlight the ways in which Pacific Islanders themselves have responded critically to these uneven relationships and how documentation and collection practices in Australian institutions reflect these political dynamics.