Vernice Wineera to Give Lecture on Literature and Cultural Identity on March 12
Vernice Wineera, former director of the Pacific Institute at Brigham Young University Hawaii, will present the annual Nan Osmond Grass Lecture, “Literature as Representative of Cultural Identity: A Pacific Perspective,” sponsored by the BYU English Department, on Thursday, March 12, at 11:00 a.m. in B092 of the Joseph F. Smith Building at Brigham Young University.
From their earliest landings on tiny islands in our planet’s largest ocean, Pacific peoples created extensive oral narratives defining their cultural identities, histories and understanding of both their physical and spiritual worlds. The arrival of colonialism imposed a Eurocentric perspective on all aspects of native life resulting in the loss of much of this tradition. In the present day, however, a renaissance of Maori and Pacific writers publishing in English has resulted in a rich, vibrant literary genre. Dr. Wineera will discuss examples of work from contemporary Pacific writers.
Born in New Zealand of Maori and English descent, her heritage is of the Ngati Toa and Ngati Raukawa tribes and she grew up near Wellington in Takapuwahia Pa, Porirua. She was educated in Australia and New Zealand before earning her BA in English and Art from BYU-Hawaii. She received both her MA and Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Hawaii.
Her poetry has appeared in books and journals in the United States, New Zealand, India, and New Guinea, and has earned awards from the Center for the Study of Christian Values in Literature, (BYU) and the South Pacific Festival (Papua, New Guinea). A new collection of her poetry Into the Luminous Tide: Pacific Poems will be published by BYU in March 2009.
Vernice has served as a vice president of the Polynesian Cultural Center in Laie, Hawaii and as director of the Pacific Institute at Brigham Young University Hawaii. In this capacity she worked as both producer and scriptwriter for a ten-year series of cultural DVDs for the government of the Kingdom of Tonga.
Vernice and her family live in Laie, Hawaii, where she is working on a series of contemporary paintings exploring Maori themes.