CSP 2 From Oceania to Los Angeles

Many “off-island” Pacific Islanders have made Los Angeles their home. Pacific Islander festivals, artists, museum exhibitions, and civic organizations have contributed to the urban fabric of the city. This course will engage with scholarship about indigeneity and diaspora in order to think about the ways in which Oceanic art and culture shapes the Los Angeles landscape. Alongside this urban narrative of space and cultural contact, we will also consider Hollywood’s role in the fabrication of island(er) identity in the media. We will discuss and analyze the intersection and disjuncture between diaspora and representation after screenings of Bird of Paradise (1932), South Pacific (1958), Hawaii Five-O (1968/2010), The Descendants (2011), and Disney’s Moana (2016).