Representing the South Pacific: Colonial Discourse from Cook to Gauguin

ISBN-13: 9780521550543 / Angielski / Twarda / 1997 / 320 str.

Rod Edmond

Opis

This book examines how the South Pacific was represented by explorers, missionaries, travelers, writers and artists between 1767 and 1914. It draws on history, literature, art history, and anthropology in its study of different, often conflicting colonial discourses of the Pacific. Among its themes are the persistent mythmaking around the figure of Cook, the Western obsession with Polynesian sexuality, tattooing, cannibalism and leprosy, the Pacific as a theater for adventure, and as a setting for Europe's displaced fears of its own cultural extinction.

Recenzje

'A finely attuned account of the way Europeans represented the Pacific world from Cook to Gauguin … A masterly survey … A fascinating account.' Bernard Smith, Australian Book Review

Spis treści

1. Introduction; 2. Killing the god: the afterlife of Cook's death; 3. Mutineers and beachcombers; 4. Missionary endeavours; 5. Trade and adventure; 6. 'Taking up with kanakas': Robert Louis Stevenson and the Pacific; 7. Skin and Bones: Jack London's diseased Pacific; 8. The French Pacific; 9. Epilogue.