Contested Endeavours, part II - Single View

Please note that that this seminar is a follow-up to last semester's course "Contested Endeavours: Remembering Cook's First Voyage of Exploration". Irrespective of this, the course may be taken by students who either did or did not participate in last semester's classes.

250 years ago, in August 1768, HMS Endeavour set sail for what would become James Cook’s first voyage round the world. It was one of several consecutive European ventures into the Pacific, undertaken at a time when competitive British and French imperial expansion was being rebranded as scientific as well as philanthropic endeavour. Along the route, the Endeavour’s crew spent extended periods of time in the Society Islands, observing the transit of Venus, as well as recording detailed information about their interactions with local communities. Further down the track, the ship’s officers continued their observations while charting, and partly claiming possession of, Aotearoa New Zealand and the East Coast of the Australian continent. In each of these locations, the repercussions of this voyage are felt to this day. Our course will focus on the difficult legacy of the Endeavour’s voyage and address the range of commemorative events – celebratory as well as antagonistic, settler colonial as well as Indigenous – that are scheduled for 2019 and 2020.