Representing the South Pacific: Colonial Discourse from Cook to GauguinThis book examines how the South Pacific was represented by explorers, missionaries, travellers, writers, and artists between 1767 and 1914 by drawing on history, literature, art history, and anthropology. Edmond engages with colonial texts and postcolonial theory, criticising both for their failure to acknowledge the historical specificity of colonial discourses and cultural encounters, and for continuing to see indigenous cultures in essentially passive or reactive terms. The book offers a detailed and grounded 'reading back' of these colonial discourses into the metropolitan centres which gave rise to them, while resisting the idea that all representations of other cultures are merely self-representations. Among its themes are the persistent myth-making around the figure of Cook, the western obsession with Polynesian sexuality, tattooing, cannibalism, and leprosy, and the Pacific as a theatre for adventure and as a setting for Europe's displaced fears of its own cultural extinction. |
Contents
List of illustrations | x |
1 Introduction | 3 |
the afterlife of Cooks death | 23 |
3 Mutineers and beachcombers | 63 |
4 Missionary endeavours | 98 |
5 Trade and adventure | 130 |
Robert Louis Stevenson and the Pacific | 160 |
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Representing the South Pacific: Colonial Discourse from Cook to Gauguin Rod Edmond No preview available - 2005 |
Common terms and phrases
adventure argued Ballantyne Ballantyne's Beach of Falesá beachcombers Beaglehole became become Bligh's body Booth and Mehew Bottle Imp Bougainville Bounty British Captain Cook chapter chief Chongui Christian civilization colonial discourse Cook's death Coral Island CWM Archives Dawn Island death of Cook described disease Ellis European example explorer figure French Gauguin Hawaii Hawaiian Ibid imperial Kealakekua Bay leprosy Letters of Robert LMS Directors London London Missionary Society Loti Loti's Makahiki Maori Marquesan Martineau Melville mission Missionary Enterprises modern Molokai mutiny myth narrative narrator native nineteenth century Noa Noa numbers in parentheses Obeyesekere Pacific islanders Paradise Paul Gauguin poem Polynesian cultures Polynesian Researches race Raiatea Robert Louis Stevenson Romantic Sahlins Samoa savage sexual ship social Society South Pacific South Sea Letters story Subsequent page numbers Tahiti Tahitian tattooing tion Tommo tradition Typee University Press voyage western Williams Wiltshire writing Zealand