Hawaii in American Literature and Culture - Einzelansicht

After you signed up, please follow the "Moodle course page" link above for more information on course readings, course requirements and grading.

This undergraduate seminar is designed as a survey course on literature from and about the Hawaiian islands and their role in U.S. literary history. Reading critically acclaimed and commercially successful texts published since the 19th century, students will come to appreciate and learn to interpret novels, short stories, plays, and critical texts. They will not only acquire the proper terminology to analyze these complex texts, but they will also explore Hawaii from various perspectives.

The students will encounter a variety of texts, which exemplify that the negotiation of Hawaii and its people has been crucial to both the composition of US colonial and imperial narratives, as well as decisive in deconstructing said narratives. Although understanding the role of Hawaii in U.S. imperial discourses is crucial to this class, this course will also pay particular attention to texts and cultural productions that articulate a Native Hawaiian perspective.

While it is, for obvious reasons, beyond the scope of this class to comprehensively cover essential the historical developments in all detail, the course will convey a wide-ranging overview over the most essential currents of the field, allowing for students to enter an informed discussion of the field.

Please follow the "comment" link above for more information on comments, course readings, course requirements and grading.

Please note: this class is going to be reading intensive. To manage the workload, it is your job to familiarize yourself with the required reading immediately and schedule time to prepare for each class.

For each class session, you will have to read a number of texts, including novels, plays, scholarly texts etc. A detailed list of the reading material will be available on moodle after your registration. However, I recommend you to get a copy of the two following novels in advance and start reading them as soon as possible. The reading list will be updated until the start of the semester.

Chin, Frank. Confessions of a Number One Son. Honolulu: U of Hawaii P, 2015. [purchasable]

Hemmings, Kaui Hart. The Descendants. London: Random House, 2011.  [purchasable]

If there are any problems with finding the texts, feel free to contact me (jtemmen@uni-potsdam.de).

As indicated in the list, some of the texts are available in Semesterapparat (Campus Neues Palais, Library, Building 9) or purchasable at a reasonable price. Excerpts or individual chapters will be made available by me via Moodle. 

It is your responsibility to locate the texts, to read them in advance, and to bring a hard copy of them to class.

3 credits are awarded for a combination of group thesis statements, individual thesis statements, and, if applicable, a module paper.