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CREATED:20260609T182023Z
DESCRIPTION:Title:\n“Moʻoʻography: Shapeshifting and Regeneration”\nAbstract:\nHawaiian genealogical narratives challenge restrictions of Euro-American biographies that focus\non a single self in a linear time and space, and offer a critical intervention through what I call\n“moʻoʻography.” In the 16th century, my ancestor, Kihawahine was ritually transformed into an\nakua moʻo/reptilian water deity at Mokuʻula ceremonial complex in Lāhaina, Maui. Each\ngeneration of the symbolic lizard spine of moʻokūʻauhau has reinterpreted the shapeshifting\nKihawahine who appears in forms including lizard, spider, dog, and alluring woman. Her status\nas one of the few female deities elevated to state worship under Kamehameha and her ability to\ntravel between and beyond the islands have inspired mana wahine/women’s power and\nleadership through spiraling time to the present day Lāhaina fire recovery.\nKihawahine’s story exemplifies the work of cultural regeneration through storied wisdom, the\nbasis for my past and future research extending moʻoʻography throughout oceania toward a\nliberated future for all. In current collaboration with others, I bring the power of cultural memory\nto Lāhaina recovery work, to social justice workshops inspired by ancestral stories of cultural\ntrauma and resilience, and to walking detours that examine the layers of disability and asylum\nstories haunting the Hawaiʻi State [Mental] Hospital grounds.\nBio: Māhealani Ahia (Kanaka ‘Ōiwi) is a scholar-activist committed to advancing interdisciplinary projects empowering Indigenous, feminist, queer, disabled, decolonial storytelling. She holds a BA from UC Berkeley and is a PhD candidate in English (Pasifika literatures) with a Graduate Certificate in Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies at UH Mānoa. She is completing her dissertation, “Shapeshifting Hawaiian Biography: Life and Afterlives of Kihawahine,” as the Henry Roe Cloud Fellow at Yale University. Her scholarship has been published in American Quarterly, Biography, Shima, and Feminism and Protest Camps. She is a co-founder of the Mauna Kea Syllabus Project and Puʻuhuluhulu University
DTEND;TZID=Pacific/Honolulu:20250122T023000Z
DTSTAMP:20260609T182023Z
DTSTART;TZID=Pacific/Honolulu:20250122T010000Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260609T182023Z
LOCATION:Business Administration Building (BUSAD) A102
PRIORITY:5
SEQUENCE:0
SUMMARY;LANGUAGE=en-us:Talk By Māhealani Ahia | Jan 21 | 3:00pm - 4:30pm
TRANSP:OPAQUE
UID:178106522343564web-support-l@lists.hawaii.edu
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