Pacific Pastoralism: ancient poetics & the deconstruction of American paradise
Date
2014-05
Authors
Contributor
Advisor
Department
Instructor
Depositor
Speaker
Researcher
Consultant
Interviewer
Narrator
Transcriber
Annotator
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Volume
Number/Issue
Starting Page
Ending Page
Alternative Title
Abstract
This aim of this thesis is to deconstruct the etymology of the word "paradise" within the context of early Pacific narratives by popular American authors, and then within today's tourist propaganda. Fundamental to that process is the imagination of "Pacific Pastoralism," in which the pastoral tradition is considered as a predecessor to American traditions of describing the landscapes and peoples of the Pacific region, as those descriptions fueled an economy forcibly mapped onto that space. Herein texts are analyzed via close-reading comparisons, historical research, and more lyrical methods such as rhetorical stargazing, echolocation, and narrative technique. While this thesis is indebted to scholars in the fields of American Studies and English literature, it attempts to open space for Pacific Island Studies to epistemologically counter its cultural materialist claims. In total, this thesis is a critique of tourist marketing, which was ferried from antiquity to the Pacific on wooden ships, and today renders beaches little more than golf course sand-traps.
Description
Keywords
Paradise in literature, Advertising--Tourism, Literary criticism
Citation
Extent
Format
Geographic Location
Hawaii
Oceania
Oceania
Time Period
Related To
Theses for the degree of Master of Arts (University of Hawaii at Manoa). American Studies.
Related To (URI)
Table of Contents
Rights
All UHM dissertations and theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission from the copyright owner.
Rights Holder
Local Contexts
Collections
Email libraryada-l@lists.hawaii.edu if you need this content in ADA-compliant format.