Talk By Māhealani Ahia | Jan 21 | 3:00pm - 4:30pm

January 21, 3:00pm - 4:30pm
Mānoa Campus, Business Administration Building (BUSAD) A101

Title: “Moʻoʻography: Shapeshifting and Regeneration” Abstract: Hawaiian genealogical narratives challenge restrictions of Euro-American biographies that focus on a single self in a linear time and space, and offer a critical intervention through what I call “moʻoʻography.” In the 16th century, my ancestor, Kihawahine was ritually transformed into an akua moʻo/reptilian water deity at Mokuʻula ceremonial complex in Lāhaina, Maui. Each generation of the symbolic lizard spine of moʻokūʻauhau has reinterpreted the shapeshifting Kihawahine who appears in forms including lizard, spider, dog, and alluring woman. Her status as one of the few female deities elevated to state worship under Kamehameha and her ability to travel between and beyond the islands have inspired mana wahine/women’s power and leadership through spiraling time to the present day Lāhaina fire recovery. Kihawahine’s story exemplifies the work of cultural regeneration through storied wisdom, the basis for my past and future research extending moʻoʻography throughout oceania toward a liberated future for all. In current collaboration with others, I bring the power of cultural memory to Lāhaina recovery work, to social justice workshops inspired by ancestral stories of cultural trauma and resilience, and to walking detours that examine the layers of disability and asylum stories haunting the Hawaiʻi State [Mental] Hospital grounds. Bio: Māhealani Ahia (Kanaka ‘Ōiwi) is a scholar-activist committed to advancing interdisciplinary projects empowering Indigenous, feminist, queer, disabled, decolonial storytelling. She holds a BA from UC Berkeley and is a PhD candidate in English (Pasifika literatures) with a Graduate Certificate in Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies at 51 ԴDz. She is completing her dissertation, “Shapeshifting Hawaiian Biography: Life and Afterlives of Kihawahine,” as the Henry Roe Cloud Fellow at Yale University. Her scholarship has been published in American Quarterly, Biography, Shima, and Feminism and Protest Camps. She is a co-founder of the Mauna Kea Syllabus Project and Puʻuhuluhulu University


Event Sponsor
Department of Ethnic Studies and Public Administration Program, Mānoa Campus

More Information
Department of Ethnic Studies, 808956806, esdept@hawaii.edu,

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