Teaching Oceania Digital Textbook Series

Teaching Oceania is a CPIS-led initiative to produce teaching and learning resources for undergraduate students in Pacific Islands Studies in Hawaiʻi and beyond. In collaboration with colleagues from universities in Hawai‘i, Aotearoa/New Zealand, Australia, across Oceania, and in the continental US, the series provides open access to teaching materials that illuminate Pacific Studies’ importance to the contemporary region. The series is designed to take advantage of digital technology to enhance texts with embedded multimedia content, thought-provoking images, and interactive graphs. Each volume is accessible as an interactive iBook (to be opened in iBooks software on Mac computer, iPad, or iPhone) and also in PDF format. Teaching Oceania currently has seven volumes, including Militarism and Nuclear testing in the Pacific, Gender in the Pacific, Health and Environment in the Pacific, Oceanic Arts: Continuity and Innovation, Islands of French-speaking Oceania, Introduction to Pacific Studies, and Pacific Islands Studies: A Transformational Movement.

Voyaging in the Pacific, is a new iBook that is an introductory text for undergraduate students to explore Pacific voyaging from multiple perspectives. The invited contributors include academics whose research centers on voyages of discovery and settlement, interaction spheres, and contemporary voyages of rediscovery from varied sources including archaeology, historical records, observations, and recorded stories. The contributors also include navigators with ancestral genealogies of voyaging, lived experiences of canoe cultures, journeys at sea, and seasoned guidance in 21st century trajectories of voyaging. Special attention is directed to specific themes including women’s roles in voyaging and contemporary voyaging organizations efforts to spearhead sustainability initiatives through ancestral wisdom for climate adaptation. In addition, the iBook format allows for engaging “boxes” that can highlight stories from several pioneering navigators.