Quest for a Post-racial Fiji & Audacity of Hope

October 28, 12:00pm - 1:30pm
Mānoa Campus, Burns 2118

Fall 2009 Speaker Series
INTERNATIONAL CULTURAL STUDIES CERTIFICATE PROGRAM
Cosponsored with the Center for Pacific Islands Studies

“The Quest for a Post-racial Fiji and the Audacity of Hope”
Dr. Vilsoni Hereniko, Center for Pacific Islands Studies, UHM

Vilsoni Hereniko is the Director of the Center for Pacific Islands Studies at the University of Hawaii. He is also a professor teaching courses in Pacific literature, theater, film, and art from the Pacific. Originally from Rotuma, he is the author of Woven Gods: Female Clowns and Power in Rotuma and co-editor of Inside Out: Literature, Cultural Politics, and Identity in the New Pacific, as well as scholarly articles, essays, and plays. His plays have been produced in Oceania, the United States, and England. In the last decade or so, he has made three films: a documentary, a short film, and a feature. Titled The Land Has Eyes, his feature debut that is set on his home island of Rotuma premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004 followed by screenings at the Museum of Modern Art as well as indigenous film festivals around the world.

The theme of race relations in Fiji has been of great interest to Hereniko over the years, and it is one that he continues to explore in his creative and scholarly writing. This talk examines the ideal of a post-racial multicultural Fiji in the light of Fiji's 2006 coup, and the military commander's stated claim that one of the reasons for his deployment of military action is his desire to bring about a post-racial Fiji. For those of us who believe in equality between Fijians and Indians, this reason gives us the audacity to hope. But are we deluding ourselves?

Date: Wednesday, Oct. 28th
Time: 12 pm – 1:20pm
Place: Burns Hall Room 2118

Sponsored by:
The UHM/EWC International Cultural Studies Program
Telephone: 808-944-7593
Fax: 808-944-7070
Office: Burns Hall #2069
Email:culture@hawaii.edu
Website: http://www2.hawaii.edu/~culture


Event Sponsor
International Cultural Studies, Mānoa Campus

More Information
Program Manager: Patricia Hart, 808-944-7593, culture@hawaii.edu, http://www2.hawaii.edu/~culture

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