M.A. - American Studies
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ItemMiss Represented: Misrepresentations of Kanaka Maoli Women in American Cinema and Moolelo as Alternative Method([Honolulu] : [University of Hawaii at Manoa], [December 2016], 2016-12)Since 1898, countless American films have depicted “Hawaiian” women but only a handful that uniquely convey the lived experiences, well-being, and accurate cultural depictions of Native Hawaiian women. This text argues that Native Hawaiian women have been misrepresented in American Cinema and that Native Hawaiian mo‘olelo (stories and oral histories) should be utilized as an alternative method for representing Native Hawaiian women. This thesis offers an analysis of the film Princess Ka‘iulani (2010) by director Marc Forby in order to explore examples of the very gendered, nationalist, historical, and racialized ways in which Kānaka women have been depicted. The second part of this thesis explores the ways in which Kānaka women could be depicted differently through a discussion of mo‘olelo and mana wahine. The hope of this study is to provide a space where representations of Native Hawaiian women in American Cinema can be discussed in a way that is productive and constructive. The goal is to shift past multifaceted arenas of difference and reimagine ways to remap difference.
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ItemUrban Ruins and the Myths of Modernity: Challenge and Resistance through the Work of Sarah R. Bloom([Honolulu] : [University of Hawaii at Manoa], [August 2015], 2015-08)This thesis explores the political potentialities of urban ruins through an investigation of ruins generally as well as through the work of artist Sarah R. Bloom. Ultimately this thesis describes urban ruins and their imagery as sites where powerful political (re)mapping of neoliberal capitalist modernity occurs. Whether through a (re)mapping of time, space, or hegemonic notions such as disposability, images of urban ruins do important work toward imagining alternative futures that are more just and sustainable for both humans and nature.
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ItemKimono as art : exhibiting and staging Japanese culture in Canton, Ohio([Honolulu] : [University of Hawaii at Manoa], [May 2013], 2013-05)While there have been a substantial amount of academic studies on the representation of Asian and Asian Americans in film and literature, far less has been written about their representation in museum exhibitions. With this thesis, I hope to help bridge a gap between the fields of Asian American studies and museum studies. One of my primary interests in museum studies is in examining the relationships that museums forge and maintain with their communities and the way that those relationships are always in flux. Currently, many museums and cultural organizations are seeking new ways to reach more diverse audiences, recognizing they will not be sustainable if they only appeal to what has traditionally been the American museum's audience in the recent past--middle and upper middle class white Americans. By examining the relationships between several different community groups in Canton, I would like this study to contribute to the existing literature on museum and communities as well as literature on the representation of cultures in a museum setting. Leilani Nishime's article "Communities on Display," one of the first readings I encountered that addresses the representation of Asian Americans (and specifically Japanese Americans) in museums, was very influential in cultivating my desire to pursue further research in this area. I was also greatly inspired by Robert Lavenda's ethnographic case study, "Festivals and Public Culture," in Minnesota, the results of which were published in the anthology, Museum and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture. This article stood out for me long before I began work on this project, namely because ofthe similarities I found between the small towns that Lavenda examines and the small towns that I grew up around in the Stark County area. In Canton, Asians were subjected to a "white gaze" and became objects of curiosity. At times, little thought was given to the reactions of the Japanese American/Asian American communities towards the content of some of the events. When Japanese and Japanese American participants did make suggestions, they were often rejected, ignored, or questioned. KLC members were reluctant to relinquish their idea of how they wanted to see Japanese culture presented an idea of Japan that was based on Orientalist imagery and pastoral romanticism. The Kimono as Art exhibition and its auxiliary events proposed to educate the people of Canton about Japanese culture. However, it also alienated Asian Americans from the majority of the Canton community by perpetuating Orientalist themes that rendered them as "the Other" and place them on the periphery of mainstream American culture. The complexity of overlapping relationships in Canton between the Japanese and Japanese Americans; between the Arts in Stark and the Canton Museum of Art; between working, lower middle class, and the upper middle class audiences; and between the Japanese/Japanese Americans and the Kimono Leadership Committee--provided an interesting case study on how museums and cultural institutions navigate the terrain of diversity. Kimono as Art was successful in attracting visitors who did not normally visit museums. But I wonder, did it offer appropriate cultural experiences of Japanese culture to the community of Canton and Stark County?
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ItemEnthusiastic religion and the lives of Titus and Fidelia Coan, missionaries to Hilo(Honolulu : University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1986-08)The great awakenings, or times of religious revivals in America, produced sweeping changes not only in theology, but in social and intellectual perceptions. The Second Great Awakening, from 1795 to 1835, led to the remarkable missionary movement which sent Christian men and women around the world to convert the "heathen." These dedicated young people experienced the · suffering that came from following the dictates of Jesus Christ; they willingly placed their lives in jeopardy for their religious faith. The Protestant missionaries to Hawaii have been called Calvinists, but what exactly does that mean? The label seems to denote people of one theological persuasion, yet the American missionaries to Hawaii arrived in the Islandsbetween 1820 and 1848, a span of almost thirty years. We shall discover that they were not cast in the same theological mold, and that their thinking reflected the changes taking place in the political, intellectual and religious environment in America.
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ItemOrientalism at Shangri La([Honolulu] : [University of Hawaii at Manoa], [December 2010], 2010-12)Part of the mission of Shangri La as a museum is to expose the public, who may not have had any exposure to it previously, to Islamic art and culture for the first time. Therefore, rather than considering the message of the estate to scholars of Islamic art and culture, this paper will focus on the possible messages taken away by the public at large who have had little previous exposure to the art and culture of Islam.4 Considering that the majority of tours are given only in English, and first time visitors may only be familiar with Shangri La as the home of an extremely wealthy woman, narrowing the origins of the average tour attendee to a visitor from the U.S. mainland or Hawaii is helpful. Certainly some do come from other countries, but these are limited both by their facility with the language as well as their interest in the home of a woman they may have heard little about. Visitors from the United States, however have almost certainly at some time heard the phrase "the richest little girl in the world," or been exposed to stories in the media of Doris Duke's eccentricities. Visitors who have a background in Islamic art, the Middle East, or are simply from another country will certainly have a different perspective, but for the purposes of this paper, the average visitor to Shangri La is considered to be from the U. S. mainland or Hawaiʻi, and have little exposure to the Islamic world beyond the American media.