Guided by writers who call these islands and oceans home, we'll get to know the poetry, stories, histories, and environments of California Shores, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Reading, and writing and discussion in response to what we read, will be central to the course. Two essays, short writing assignments, and, as part of a small group, a contextual oral presentation and facilitation of a literary work are course requirements. Providing context for and a deeper understanding of our readings, select topics from environmental science will figure into our course: biodiversity, climate change, population migration, and environmental justice. In particular, we will consider coral reef health; the social and physical legacy of weapons testing; the effect of rising sea levels on peoples and cultures. We'll encounter celebrated shapeshifters from the mythologies of the Marshall Islands and Hawaii, like Kamapua'a, who appears as a hog or as a human, and Pele, whose volcanic power brings destruction as well as new life. We'll learn why these eternal trickster figures remain essential to the literature and lives of Pacific peoples. In Robert Barclay's novel Melal, for example, the fate of a Marshallese family and three American boys on a fishing trip hinges on a game of hide-and-seek played by trickster Etao and dwarf Noniep. Among other writers, hear from Craig Santos Perez of Guam and from Kristiana Kahakauwila of Hawai'i. In the literature we read and in the orature we experience, we'll give close attention to the way traditional stories, beliefs, and practices exist alongside contemporary situations and practices.

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