Oceania Centre for Arts, Culture and Pacific Studies

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Pacific Studies

Pacific Studies offers three postgraduate degree programs (Postgraduate Diploma, MA, and PhD). These programs aim to increase Pacific awareness and cross-cultural competency and improve dissemination of Pacific ideas and frameworks to meet the challenges of the region and globalization.

Requirements for the Postgraduate Diploma consist of 3 core courses (out of the four mentioned below) and 1 elective course from a wide range of disciplines. The four core courses include: PA 402 – Pacific Thought, Philosophy and Ethics, of particular relevance to issues of governance and development in the region; PA 409 – Representations of the Pacific, which examines the evolving nature of Pacific Studies and changing representations of the Pacific; PA 418 – Knowing and Being in Oceania: Pacific Epistemology, which examines contemporary understanding and framings of knowledge and their expression and application; and PA 419 –Contemporary Issues in the Pacific, which looks at a wide range of topics relevant to Pacific Island societies today using an interdisciplinary approach that prioritizes indigenous experiences, voices, and perspectives.

Pacific Studies Postgraduate Forum. Sept. 4th, 2013

Pacific Studies UU204 Pacific Worlds

2012, Pacific Studies launched a compulsory course for all undergraduate students attending USP: UU 204 – Pacific Worlds. In this course you will be introduced to the places, histories, cultures, arts, and politics of Oceania. Our interdisciplinary approach weaves together first-hand information from people of the areas, supplemented with historical writings, contemporary documents, and visual representations as they relate to the region. To draw upon such a range of diverse knowledge requires multiple conceptual lenses or perspectives through which to understand this dynamic and complex region that makes up a third of the world's surface and has one fifth of the world's languages. By taking this course, you will gain informed understanding of Oceania, what the geographic areas of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesian have in common, as well as what makes them different from one another. A broad overview of Oceania will be complemented by focused research on specific islands or countries, allowing for a deep and comparative understanding of what is unique or special about Oceania.
This course is a compulsory University Course. Prerequisites: UU100 and UU114.

Pacific Studies also provides a “10-day” program for international students, primarily designed for undergraduates, combining lectures with site visits. Topics include: Settlement and Colonization of the Pacific; Western Contact, Self-Determining and Independence Movements; Contemporary Issues in the Pacific: Traditions, Capitalism, and Globalization; Contemporary Issues in the Pacific: Climate Change and Sea-Level Rise; and Contemporary Arts in Oceania.

Postgraduate Degree in Pacific Studies Poster

OCACPS Seminar Series

Pacific Studies organizes the "OCACPS Seminar Series" during the academic year. Seminars are held at the Molikilagi Bure, Laucala Campus, 1-2 pm.

Semester 2, 2012 Speakers:

Jara Hulkenberg (Centre for Pacific Studies, University of St. Andrews): " Masi (Fijian Barkcloth): Cloth of the Vanua and House for the Powers of the Ancestor Gods" (August 27th, 2012).

Semester 1, 2012 Speakers:

Anne Virgo (Australian Print Workshop): "Telling Stories – The Language of Printmaking" (May 14th, 2012).
Randy Thaman (Division of Geography, FSTE, USP): "Keeping Pacific Island Arks Afloat: Indigenous Knowledge and Ethnobiodiversity on the Front Line Against Global Change and Extreme Events" (May 3rd, 2012).
Alan Howard (Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, University of Hawai'i-Mānoa) and Jan Rensel (Center for Pacific Islands Studies, University of Hawai'i-Mānoa): "The Rotuman Diaspora" (February 20th, 2012).
Yasuo Endo (Professor, the Center for Pacific and American Studies, The University of Tokyo): "Conflict and Coexistence: The Vision of the Pacific Ocean among the Japanese from the 17th Century to the mid-20th Century" (March 12th, 2012 – co-presented with School of Social Sciences Seminar Series).

Semester 2, 2011 Speakers:

Vilimaina Navila (M.A. Student in Pacific Studies, OCACPS): "Pacific Cultural Sustainability: A Critical Examination of Initiative and Possible Advocacy Programs for iTaukei Studies in Schools" (September 29th, 2011).
Betty Kamoe- Manuofetoa (Graduate Assistant and M.A. Student in Pacific Studies, OCACPS): "Preliminary Findings of Research on Rotuma: the Juju District Crisis" (October 13th, 2011).
Frank Thomas (Senior Lecturer in Pacific Studies, OCACPS): "Environmental History of Pacific Atolls" (November 1st, 2011).
Tui Nicola Clery (Ph.D. Student in Pacific Island Studies, University of Otago): "The Arts as Activism in Fiji: Telling Stories for Change in the World" (November 3rd, 2011).
Jeanne Hoorelbeke (French artist from Wallis Island): "The Influence of Pacific Arts in Europe and France from the Turn of the 19th Century into the 20th" and "The Representation of the Human Body, its Idealization and Stylization from Prehistory until now, through different Kinds of Arts" (December 14th and 15th, 2011).

Oceania Centre for Arts, Culture and Pacific Studies
Private Bag, Laucala Campus,
Suva, Fiji.
Tel: (+679) 323 2332
Fax: (+679) 323 1524