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NEWSLETTER

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EAST-WEST CENTER 2-5 Culture Learning Institute June 1, 1974

A novel approach to culture learningBy John Walsh

Several of us in the Culture Learn-

irig Instifute, from a number of dif-ferent cultures, are currently engagedin an activity that has as one of its

objectives the co-authoring of a book,Culture learning through literature.Each of the participants in the activityjoins in a regular weekly seminarand anumber of the participants have agreedto be responsible for the writing of a

specific chapter that will bear his or

her name when the book is published.Since we openly discuss the drafts inthe seminar this activity has becomefor all of us a good object lesson in theexcitement and the frustration, the

strengths and the weaknesses, the giveand take of cooperative intercultural

learning.This paper will explore the thinking

behind the activity rather than assessits progress to this point. One of the

early decisions we made was to con-fine our study of culture learningthrough literature to certain selectednovels, although we suspect that thesame basic methodology might applyto other literary forms as well. Forexample, drama, poetry, the short

story, and the motion picture might be

equally as good as the novel as sourcesof culture learning.

It has been our assumption fromthe beginning that the study of certainof its novels is one of the several waysin which some of the essential qualitiesor characteristics of a culture can belearned. Simply put, we felt that tocome to understand and appreciate the** * *Dr. John Walsh, Culture Learning instituteresearch associate, is coordinator of the

thought and expression in culture learningthematic subdivision.

literature-oral and written-of a cul-ture is to realize more fully what theunderlying meanings and values of thatculture are. In initiating this activitywe were not thinking of ourselves as

literary critics or as sociologists ofliterature, but rather we sensed thatwe might be doing something newandinterestingly interdisciplinary forwhich there is as yet no name. Thenovel, it appeared to us, might be a

deep and rich mine of culture learningif we could discover the appropriateways for getting at it. We consideredfirst the possibility of asking each ofthe novels we selected a specified setof questions; next we thought wewould simply read the novels and in asense let them, each in its own way,reveal what it would of the culture outof which it arose; next some of us readthe novels looking for central symbols,key concepts that the personages inthe novel accepted or rejected, andimplicit or explicit value statements.Variations of these approaches andothers as well are likely to be found inthe finished chapters. Our hope is thatthese chapters will incorporate someof the imagination, immediacy, pas-sion, and integration of the writer'sself with his subject matter that willserve to make of the whole activity awarmly self-actualizing humanistic en-

terprise rather than a coldly analyticone.

Somewhat disparaging

Against the background of the

long-standing discussion in academiccircles of whether the humanisticmode or the scientific mode is morevalid, more realistic, and more produc-tive in culture learning, the use of theword humanistic in the above sentence

might appear somewhat disparaging tothose social sciences that also devotethemselves in whole or in part toculture learning. It is not so intended.It is meant only to suggest that allculture learning, in whatever form ormode, may turn out to be as much amatter of feeling, attitude, and emo-tion as of intellect. Lionel Trilling goesso far as to say that the study of aculture is inevitably emotionally mov-

ing and that

indeed, without this

sympathy and admiration a culture is aclosed book to the student, for thescientific attitude requisite for the

study of cultures is based on a verylively subjectivity."

This issue of the Newsletter spot-lights the Culture Learning Insti-tute's participants and projects inthe thought and expression in cul-ture learning thematic subdivision.The other three areas of interest tothe Institute are cultures in contact;language. in culture, and culturalidentity.

In the broader context Michael

Polanyi in his book Personal knowl-edge is very convincing that the con-

cept of scientific objectivity in thestudy of social issues is largely a myth.No investigator, he points out, cancome to the study of any aspect of thehuman and social predicament withouthis background of ideas and values andhe can not avoid using these personalconstructs even in identifying the is-sue, to say nothing of studying it andproposing solutions to it. The pointhere is that both the so-called hu-manist and the so-called social scientistmust come to the question of culture

(Continued on page 4)

CULTURE AND LANGUAGE

LEARNING

'Halfway Road' is milestone for CLI granteeHonolulu theatre-goers were once

again given a glimpse of Malaysiantheatre when Kumu Kahua, a Univer-

sity theatre group which encouragesthe production of locally written

plays, presented Ghulam Sarwar'stwo-act play "Halfway Road, Penang"on April 20-27.

Sarwar is an East-West Center Cul-ture Learning Institute grantee from

Malaysia working towards a Ph.D. inDrama and Theatre. He also assisted inthe March production of the classicalSanskrit drama, "The Vision of Vasa-vadatta," and translated and directedlast summer's Malaysian music-drama

production, "The Spell of the Giant-ess."

Multiracial situation

"Halfway Road, Penang" deals witha multi-racial situation in the Malay-sian society. Set in Sat-war's hometown, Penang, the play presents someof the social, cultural, political and

religious conflicts that beset Malaysiansociety and that are not unlike theconflicts found in Hawaii or in anyother multi-racial society.

In "Halfway Road," the leadingcharacters, Rosnah and Krishnamoor-thy who belong to the Malay andIndian ethnic groups respectively, face

opposition from their families when

they decide to marry each other.

Krishnamoorthy, who is born and

brought up in modern Malaysia,"where all races live side-by-side," isunable to understand his father's divid-ed loyalties (to India and to Malaysia)and his parents' horror when he an-nounces that he's going to give up hisHinduism to become a Muslim so thathe can marry Rosnah.

Mr. Bruce Palmore, directorEmeritus of the Fiji Museum,in Suva, and 1972-73 seniorfellow in the Culture Learn-ing Institute, passed away inApril in Auckland, New Zea-land. He was coordinator ofCLI's Museum ManagementProject.

No greater sin

To his parents there can be no

greater sin than for Krishna to give uphis superior Brahmin status to marryamere waitress from another religionand another race. The events of May1969 when racial conflicts came to theforefront in Malaysia still linger intheir minds, and there is the fear thatKrishna's involvement will lead tomore trouble for the family. The

marriage, however, fails for Krishna-moorthy, despite his claims is subcon-

sciously still attached to his old ances-tral religion. He is unable to supportRosnah and is not willing to toleratehis mother-in-law. Rosnah decides toleave him, his attempts to win herback fail, and he's left at the end ofthe play without a sense of direction.His karma has overcome him.

"Halfway Road, Penang" raises sev-eral important issues: conflict between

generations; traditional attitudes to-wards various races and towards vari-ous occupations; the question of

inter-marriage in a multi-racial society;questions related to religions and reli-

gious practices; cross-cultural conflicts

arising; ignorance of other cultures andlack of attempts to understand othercultures; the social conditions of the

average Malaysian woman in a society

whose marriage and divorce laws arelax and where divorce often leadswomen into situations where prostitu-tion becomes tempting.

"Halfway Road, Penang" is GhulamSarwar's first full-length play. He hasin addition written one one-act pieceand has recently completed work onanother full-length play, a surrealisticpiece entitled "Suvarna-Padma (TheGolden Lotus)." Sarwar is also a proli-fic poet, and has been editor of "Con-tact," the newspaper of the East-WestCenter Students' Association. 0

News Notes

Dr. Jean Marie Ackermann, 1971-72 Institute fellow, has established aDepartment of Transcultural Trainingat Language House, a division of Tele-media, Inc. The purpose of the depart-ment is to enable corporations tobetter prepare their staffs in language,thought and action patterns of theoverseas countries in which they willbe working. Programs will includeboth general and culture-specific seg-ments, and will be conducted prior toand during the overseas assignment.

Dr. Ackermann received her Ph.D.in intercultural communication in1972 from Claremont GraduateSchool. 0

2 Culture andLanguage Learning Newsletter

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CLI Participantsfrom Australia, Philippines, Japan, Rep, of China, and American Samoa

CU completes weekly seminar seriesOn April 30, the Culture Learning to April, 1974.thought and expression in culture

SInstitute completed a series of 23 The series' purpose was to provide learning. Topics for the seminar in-

weekly seminars with a presentationan opportunity for degree-seeking stu-cluded analyses of cross-cultural mis-

by the director, Dr. Verner C. Bickley,dents, professional development parti-understanding, bilingual education,

on "Translation errors that have at-cipants, staff members, and visitingmusic as communication, second-Ian-fected history." The seminars, coordi-senior fellows to share ideas related toguage learning, preschool educationnated by CLI research associate Dr.one or more of the institute's fourin Australia, and the role of the

Richard Brislin, were held on Tuesdayssubdivisions: cultures in contact; cul- museum in the Pacific. 0

at 11:00 a.m. from September, 1973,tural identity; language in culture; and

4

Verner C. Bickley, CLI Director Junko Tanaka, Ph.D. candidate in psychology

Culture and Language Learning Newsletter 3

Culture learning...(Continued from page 1)

learning as human beings. Both mayhave something important to say andboth would be immodest and ungener-ous in laying claim to the bigger andbetter truth.

As mentioned, we have started withthe assumption that literature can andshould be one of the important chan-nels or sources of culture learning. Butwe are constantly re-examining eventhis assumption and in so doing twomain questions concerning it have aris-en.

Its own integrity

The first of these has to do with theauthor's intention and with the natureof the novel as a work of art with itsown reasons for being and its own

integrity. The novelist, it is said, hasno intention of writing a social com-

mentary or documentary; he intends

nothing more or less than to tell a

story in the most artistic way possibleand his skills as a novelist do not

necessarily include those of penetrat-ing cultural or societal observation. sit not then unfair to the novelist forthe reader or the culture learner to

interpret the whole or parts of thenovel in ways that the author himself

might not be conscious of or in wayswith which he might disagree if hecould be questioned? Further, since anovel has its own beauty and integrityand is nothing more than it purportsto be, is not there danger of doingviolence to the novel as novel if onestudies it for what it might reveal ofthe culture? And this even though thenovel is inevitably a product of theculture out of which it arises?

In at least partial response to thisquestion some of us have taken the

position that once he has finished hiscreative work, the author's intentionin creating it ceases to be of primaryimportance. Not all novels are goodsources of culture learning by anymeans but those that are say some-

thing important about the culturewhatever the author's original inten-tion may have been. Except for such

copyright laws as may prevail, thecompleted novel passes into the publicdomain to impress its readers as it

may. Novelists, like most people, prob-ably have a number of intentions andmotivations in doing what they do in

the way they do it, and, like mostwriters, novelists sometimes write bet-ter than they know.

The point might be argued that aparticular novel could be replete withculture learning potential, that is, withthemes, values and attitudes towardthem, ways of conflict resolution,sources of inner strength, the workingsof fate, and the like, without theauthor's ever having consciously ad-verted to that fact. Whether a novel isa source of culture learning for a givenreader or student depends as much onthe capacities of the reader, particular-ly his perceptions and sensitivities, asit does on the intentions of the author.The novel becomes the means bywhich one learns something more ofthe culture in much the same way as

any teacher or book is the means bywhich one learns in any other field.And like other means of learning, thenovel has its advantages and its disad-

vantages, its main advantage probablybeing its power to absorb the readerand to evoke his emotional as well ashis intellectual response.

If not exclusively

To seek out what a given novel

might teach us about a given cultureneither enhances nor diminishes thenovel as novel; it may or may not addto our enjoyment and appreciation ofthe novel. Literary criticism is onething and culture learning throughliterature is something quite different.The literary critic is necessarily, if not

exclusively, concerned with the artisticmerit of the work. It is he who judgesthe novel according to what he deemsto be the proper canons of this literaryart form; it is he who seeks to staywithin the formalities and the possibil-ities of the novel itself in determiningits quality. But the culture learner, assuch, is not primarily interested in thenovel as a work of art. Though he maylike or dislike, enjoy or not enjoy, thenovel as a human being, he is lookingfor something else when he approachesa novel as a student of culture or aculture learner. He does no injury tothe novel when he seeks to discoverwhether and in what ways the novelhelps him to comprehend more deeplythat structure of ways of seeing, feel-

ing, believing, and doing that is theessence or the abiding spirit of aculture. So wide is the differencebetween literary criticism and culture

learning through literature that someof the lesser novels maywell be better

sources of culture learning than some

of the greater novels.The second of the main questions

regarding the assumption that the nov-el can and should be a rich source ofculture learning is how the thoughtsand emotions of individual people in

particular circumstances-such as thosefound in a -novel ... give us sufficient

grounds for making generalizationsabout a culture. Culture learning, afterall, aims at an understanding of the

patterns or structure of the culture asa whole rather than at the understand-

ing of this or that person. The equallyimportant opposite version of this

question is whether the novel is con-cerned with culture differences at allsince it tends to deal with those

meanings and values that are commonto most, if not all, human beings andare therefore considered to be univer-sal.

This question led us to take anotherlook at the nature of literature, againspecifically the novel, and at the con-

cept of generalization in culture learn-

ing. Our discussion of these and close-

ly related matters in the seminar with

people of different culture back-grounds contributing their viewpointshas in itself been valuable experiencein culture learning.One of the reasons, it seems to me,

that literature (again specifically thenovel) is so endlessly fascinating lies

precisely in the fact that at the sametime it concentrates or focuses on thelife and problems of individual personsit inescapably locates these personsboth in a definite cultural milieu andin the broad context of their common

humanity. Thus, for example, in com-

ing to know Dr. Zhivago, created and

presented to us as a person by BorisPasternak, we also come to know moreabout Russian culture-since Zh ivagoas well as Pasternak himself are partsof, and products of, that culture-andmore of what all human beings share

profoundly in common. Every self,

every person, lives both in and beyondhis culture. If I may quote Lionel

Trilling once again for he has seen this

point with exceptional clarity! "Thefunction of literature, through all itsmutations, has been to make us awareof the particularity of selves, and the

high authority of the self in its quarrelwith its society and its culture. Litera-

(Continued on page 5)

4 Culture and Language Learning Newsletter

Culture learning(Continued from page 4)

ture is in that sense subversive."2 The

persons who write novels and the

people they create in their novels are

shaped by their culture even to theremotest parts of their mind and be-

ing, including those parts of their

psyche in which are formed theirconcepts about and their attitudestoward their fellow human beings ev-

erywhere. Culture learning, throughliterature and in all other ways, takesits high importance from the fact thatculture mediates between the self andall other selves in the world.

To what extent is it possible to

generalize about a culture on the basisof what one comes to know about it

through its literature? The answer tothis question is crucial to culture

learning through literature since thebasic reason for all culture learning isthe learner's increasing ability to makeever more general, accurate, and pow-erful statements about the culture heseeks to learn. It probably goes with-out saying that the more deeply and

widely one has read in a culture'sliterature the better position he is in tomake firm, forceful, and helpful gener-alizations based on his reading. (This isnot to deny that the close reading ofone novel particularly pregnant withculture insights might not be morefruitful than the reading of manynovels less appropriate for culture

learning purposes.) It should also gowithout saying that in fact one hardlyever generalizes about a culture on the

basis only of what he has read in itsliterature. It could well be questionedwhether in fact one ordinarily gains his

original impressions about a culturefrom its literature or whether it is notmost often the case that he finds his

vague views, hunches and guessesabout the culture deepend and corrob-orated, challenged and modified,

sharpened and expanded in the in-

sights he gains from the study of itsliterature.

Considered such points

In our discussion of the problemsand nature of generalization in culture

learning through literature we haveconsidered such points as the follow-

ing:1. Some novelists will occasionally,

either in a descriptive passage or in the

words of one of the characters in thenovel, make an explicit generalizationabout the culture in which the storytakes place. As he would with anyother generalization, the culture learn-er accepts it, rejects it, or qualifies it.If he considers it to be valid, he willmake it part of his own thinking and

writing about the culture.2. The fact that certain personages

in a novel hold to a set of ideas, values,traditions, or aspirations does not initself indicate whether all, most, many,or even some other people of theculture in which the story is situatedshare in them. The concept of cultureis itself an abstraction and people are

members of cultures in varying waysand with varying degrees of intensityand commitment. Consequently, theredoes not appear to be any way of

knowing for sure how fully a givenperson, real or fictitious, can be said tobe typical or representative of theculture. On the other hand a novel isnot likely to be widely read, discussed,and studied in a culture over a periodof time unless it says something of

significance about the culture whichthe readers can recognize as authenticand with which they can identify,negatively or positively. It would seemto follow that statements about the

(Continued on page 11)

In search of aChinese Solzhenitsyn

By Steven F.Sagi

Steven Sagi is a CLI granteefrom the United States, workingtowards a Ph.D. degree in history.He is one of ten graduate studentsin various disciplines working inCLl's "Literature and CultureLearning" activity, coordinated byDr. John Walsh, research associate.Here he describes his essay whichwill form one chapter of the pro-posed Culture learning through lit-erature volume.

This study will focus on the novel'splace in its cultural setting on main-land China. Admittedly, there havebeen few, if any, works of great proseliterature to emerge during the past 25

years in the People's Republic. Where-as other forms of literary expression,notably theater and opera, have flour-ished as vehicles for socio-politicalcomment, the novel to all outwardappearances underwent a long hiberna-tion. Post-1949 efforts all seem to

uniformly feature wooden characteri-zation, childishly simplistic style, and

thoroughly predictable dialectic plots.Compared to the masterpieces of aPasternak or a Solzhenitsyn, also pro-duced in a Communist cultural envi-ronment, the Chinese output disap-points us with its sterility.

Yet somehow an active literarycriticism continues, often vituperativein tone. An endless succession ofwriters undergoes the cycle of disgraceand rehabilitation, while as a whole

the entire profession itself experiencesvicissitudes of stringency and thenrelaxed controls. Considering the highlevel of activity, it is apparent that

foreign observers of the Chinese intel-lectual scene have largely missed some-

thing.In our essay we shall overlook the

mediocre technical quality of recentChinese fiction and attempt to under-stand the literature on its own terms.We intend to review several episodes of

literary fashion, and study the purgecampaigns against selected dissenters

through a quarter century. Such indivi-duals include Vu P'ing-po, Hu Feng,Ting Ling, and others. Central to the

inquiry will be questions of culture

learning and cultural persistence. Towhat extent have professional writers"learned" the new culture of social-ism? In what degree does their workreflect singularly Chinese, as opposedto Chinese Communist values? Howhas the novel served to portray under-currents in the ongoing struggle be-tween China's competing politicallines? What indeed are the true mo-tives of contemporary Chinese literarycraftsmen?

The poor quality of a literature

ought not function as a bar to our

examining how a culture expressesitself through that genre. It is our

feeling that by casting some light onthe above topics we may gain insightinto how the developing Chinese soci-

ety is reflected through the medium ofthe novel.

0

Culture and Language Learning Newsletter 5

Twenty Aboriginal dancers visit East-Wei

A group of twenty Aboriginaldancers from Australia's remoteNorthern Territory opened a week-long program in Hawaii with a perfor-mance April 25 in the exotic settingof the Japanese Garden at the East-West Center. The performance wassponsored by the Culture LearningInstitute as part of its cultural identitytheme, and was attended by morethan 1000 spectators from the Centerand the outside community.

Making their first appearance in theUnited States, the Aboriginal TheatreFoundation dancers draw on ancienttribal lore to portray stories and leg-ends which range from the sacred tothe comic. Dances were performed to

the accompaniment of the didjeridu, atrumpet like instrument carved fromthe branch of a tree.The dance troup-recruited from

the Yirrikala, Millingimbi, and Bamyilicultural areas of Arnhem Land-cameto Hawaii as the culmination of a toursponsored by the Australian Depart-ment of Foreign Affairs in the SouthPacific.On April 26, Mr. Lance Bennett,

director of the Aboriginal TheatreFoundation gave a lecture-demonstra-tion dealing with the arts and socialaspects of Aboriginal life. That after-noon in the CLI garden, the perform-ers demonstrated singing, spear-mak-ing, bark-painting, and body-painting.

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6 Culture and Language Learning Newsletter

Photos by Arnold Kishi

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Culture and Language Learning Newsletter 7

East-West Culture Learning Institute

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Information Form

(Miss)Name (Mrs.)

(Mr.)

Countryof Citizenshi

Home Address:

Name of person to notify incase of accident or illness:

Title of your present position:

Name of your immediate supervisor:

Agency/Business Address:

CableAddress:

Date position- assumed:__.

Important: Attach a 1-2 page description of your present duties and reponsibilities and how participation in the program will

help you in carrying out these duties and responsibilities upon your return.

Signature of Applicant

Project

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Male __________ Married _________

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8 Culture and Language Learning Newsletter

Additional Work Experience: (begin with most recent employment)

Education: (begin with most recent and include short-term technical or professional training)

EAST-WEST CULTURE LEARNING INSTITUTE ANNOUNCES

CULTURAL CENTERSPROGRAM

5 Museum Management, Archives Management, Ethnomusicology

September 1, 1974 - February 28, 1975

PURPOSE::The East-West Culture Learning Institute announces the second phase ofthe Cultural Centers Program to be held at the East-West Center inHonolulu, Hawaii, September 1, 1974 - February 28, 1975. Organized aspart of the project Symbolic Processes in Cultural Identity within theInstitute subdivision cultural identity, the program is intended to provideparticipants from Asia, the Pacific, and the United States with opportunitiesto exchange knowledge and ideas and to learn new skills necessary for theorganization of small museums and archives which will house collections ofhistorical documents and records, recordings of oral literature, archives ofindigenous music and song texts and collections of artifacts.

SCHEDULE OF ACTIVITIES:The program will include seminars, workshops, lectures and individualtutorials. It will consider, in particular, issues relating to identity and socialchange and the relationship between these issues and the followingactivities: (1) archives systems, classification, cataloging, oral traditions,conservation and restoration; (2) the documenting of songs and dances, therationale of ethnomusicological studies and examination of the sociologicaland artistic bases of a broad range of the world's music/dance cultures; (3)the role of museums in cultural conservation, museum organization,operation and techniques, with emphasis on safekeeping, safe handling andpreservation of museum materials.

ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS:Applications will be considered from candidates who are: (1) either active

Sprofessionals already working in museums, archives or libraries, or who arefamiliar with and, preferably able to perform, their own traditional music,song and dances; (2) not presently engaged in the above but who wish todevelop expertise in museum management, archive management or ethno-musicology and who will be considered for appointments to positionsrelated to these areas by their institutions or governments; (3) selected bytheir institutions or appropriate governmental agencies; (4) from the UnitedStates or from countries in Asia and the Pacific and are citizens of thecountries they represent; (5) fluent in English, which will be the medium ofcommunication.

GRANT PROVISIONS:

East-West CenterIn addition to educational costs, CLI will provide the participants in thisproject with free housing accommodations at the East-West Centerdormitory (on a double occupancy basis) and $240 per month stipend tocover meals and incidentals for the duration of the project. Health Insurancecosts will also be met.

Non-East-est CenterParticipants in the project or their governments and institutions will beresponsible for the provision of a round-trip economy airfare for theircandidates from their home country to Honolulu and return; for maintain-ing their candidates on salary while they are away during the project period;and for the provision of 10 per cent of the total project cost for eachparticipant, a total of $339.00.

HOW TO APPLY:Participants, through their institutions or governmental agencies, shouldcomplete the application form enclosed, and airmail to:

The Director

S East-West Culture Learning Institute1777 East-West RoadHonolulu, Hawaii 96822

Application forms must be submitted by June 30, 1974. Awards will beannounced by July 31, 1974. 0

THE EAST-WEST CENTER is anational education institution es-tablished in Hawaii by the UnitedStates Congress in 1960. Formallyknown as "The Center for Culturaland Technical Interchange BetweenEast and West," the federally-funded Center is administered in

cooperation with the University ofHawaii. Its mandated goal is "to

promote better relations betweenthe United States and the nationsof Asia and the Pacific throughcooperative study, training, and re-search."

Each year about 1,500 men andwomen from the United States andsome 40 countries and territories ofAsia and the Pacific area work and

study together with a multi-natio-nal East-West Center staff in pro-grams dealing with problems ofmutual East-West concern. Theyinclude students, mainly at the

post-graduate level; Senior Fellows

and Fellows with expertise in re-search and/or practical experiencein government and business admin-istration; professional study and

training participants in non-degree

programs at the teaching and man-

agement levels; and authorities in

various fields meeting in interna-tional conferences and seminars.A fundamental aim of all East-

West Center programs is to foster

understanding and mutual respectamong people from differing cul-

tures working together in seekingsolutions to common problems.The Center draws on the resources

of U.S. mainland universities, andAsian/Pacific educational govern-mental institutions as well as organ-izations in the multicultural Stateof Hawaii.

Participants are supported byfederal scholarships and grants, sup-

plements in some fields by contri-butions from Asian/Pacific govern-ments and private foundations.

Center programs are conducted

by the East-West Communication

Institute, the East-West Culture

Learning Institute, the East-WestFood Institute, the East-West Popu-lation Institute, and the East-West

Technology and Development Insti-

tute. Open Grants are awarded to

provide scope for educational and

research innovation, including hu-manities andthe arts.

El

Culture and Language Learning Newsletter

The writing of biography by Pacific historiansBy Gavan Dews

Read the World catalogue of theseson the Pacific Islands,' more than athousand titles now. Go through theannual bibliography in the authorita-tive Journal de la Sociótó des Ocean-isz'es. Or read, cover to cover, the

equally authoritative Journal of Pacific

History. This fact emerges: historiansof the Pacific have not interestedthemselves much in the writing of

biography.Then read what actually has been

published in the way of Pacific bio-

graphy, and another fact emerges: the

body of work that exists, limited inextent as it is, shows considerable

variety of approach and a wide rangeof accomplishment, but not one of the

biographers could be regarded as psy-choanalytically well informed.

Equestrian statues

What biographical writing there is,is very often about white men wemight label Victorian. Now, the Vic-torian assertion generally was thatreason was in control of emotion.Rational thought was the masterfulrider, whose project wasthe control ofthe dark passions, the powerful horsethat he rode. What historians in thePacific field have produced-twentieth-century biographies of nineteenth-

century figures-appears, then, prettymuch as a set of equestrian statues. Inother words, we have usually beencontent to do public biographies of

public figures, civic art, substantial,

worthy, very presentable, at the sametime very outward. These are worksabout men who thought they were incontrol of themselves, works writtenalso as exercises in control, restraint,decorum. To put it another way, inthe Victorian era, when there was

literally a great expansion in the areaof conscious human control, there was

Or. Gavan Dews, professor of history at the

University of Hawaii, is a senior fellow

working in the Culture Learning institute's

thought and express in culture learning andcultral identity subdivisions.

also somehow a related contraction inwhat could be openly acknowledgedabout human behavior. Stern men

publicly in charge of things hid their

private faces behind whiskers. Bio-

graphers in the Pacific field have beencontent to record the fact that their

subjects grew whiskers.It turns out on closer inspection

that this is how we have been tacitlyguided and encouraged to do ourwork. We do not have much in the

way of formal pronouncements aboutwhat Pacific history should be like.What we do have is remarkably gener-ous in conception, but nowhere isthere a suggestion that psychoanalyti-cally informed biography, or psycho-history generally, is part of our man-date.

Indigenous forces

The inaugural address of JamesDavidson,2 first professor of Pacific

history at the Australian National Uni-versity, world center of the field, tellsus that the Pacific historian will findhimself in multi-cultural situations,that he must take account of indige-nous forces at work, that he mustlearn the techniques of fieldwork aswell as those of research among manu-

script and published source materials.He will be-in Davidson's later phrase-very often the participant as histori-an, needing personal experience as wella learning to carry him through. H.E.Maude, one of the most eminent prac-titioners of Pacific history, rich in

experience and learning, tells us3 thatwe can draw on the findings of ecolo-gists, ethnobotanists, navigational ex-perts, linguists, physical and cultural

anthropologists, archeologists, and

pre-historians. He says, along withDavidson, that we must learn to beethno-historians, or, better, culture-historians. One other Pacific historianwith a professorial chair, G.M. Dening,tells us4 what we can and cannot

expect Pacific ethnohistorical materi-als to show us. Here and there wecome across a suggestion that an indi-vidual may be disproportionately in-fluential in the characteristicallysmall-scale societies of the Pacific is-lands. Nowhere is' there a suggestion

that public powers exercised by anindividual might have a private compo-nent of passion and pain. Thus there isnothing more than a tacit invitation todo biography, and certainly no invita-tion to do psycho-history of any kind.

It is surely not the case that Pacifichistorians are short of potential bio-

graphical subjects. As a sourcebook,Patrick O'Reilly's Tahitiens5could keepa graduate school going for decades byitself. And it seems to me that, beyondoffering mere availability of subjects in

great numbers, the Pacific islandsmake a particularly good point oforigin for psycho-analytically-orientedbiographical writing.

It is well understood among ecolo-gists that in island settings, an intro-duced plant or animal, restrained

enough in its continental ecologicalniche at home, often tends to expandin its new habitat, assuming a kind of

disproportionate eccentric commandof the situation, just because it is notunder its customary restraints. Some-thing of the same sort is true, or maywell be true, of the transplanted conti-nental Westerner who finds his way, oreven thinks his way, to the islands.

Historial transactions

On this general theme, some rele-vant things have been said by theDutch historian Henri Baudet, talkingabout Europe and non-Europe and thehistorical transactions between them.He is talking at the same time, in code,so to speak, about horse and rider,about relations between the consciousand the unconscious in Western behav-ior and thought. "A marked dualism,"he says, "does appear to be the firstfact to strike an observer of the

European's attitude to the world out-side. Two relations, separate but indi-visible, are always present in the Euro-pean consciousness. One is in therealm of political life in its broadestsense, in the atmosphere of concreterelations with concrete non-Europeancountries, people, and worlds. That isthe relationship which freely employspolitical, military, socio-economic, andsometimes missionary terminology .The other relationship has reigned in

(Continued on page 11)

10 Culture and Language Learning Newsletter

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Pacific blo.IContinued from page 10)

the minds of men. Its domain is thatof the imagination, of all sorts of

images of non-Western peoples andworlds which have flourished in ourculture-images not derived from obser-vation, experience and perceptible re-

ality but from a psychological urge.That urge creates its own realitieswhich are totally different from the

political realities of the first category.But they are in no way subordinate ineither strength or clarity since theyhave always possessed the absolute

reality value so characteristic of therule of myth.

-6

Missionary exploitation

In this second sense, the Pacificislands, and especially Polynesia, have

historically been the ultimate non-Europe. Consideration of the first ofBaudet's two non-Europes, the oneinvolved in political, military, socio-economic, and to a certain extent

missionary exploitation, has in generaldominated the pens of thosewho haverecorded Western expansion. But con-sideration of the second non-Europe isessential if we are to understand West-ern civilization as it imposed itself onthe Pacific islands in the persons ofindividual Westerners.

Yet the writing of Pacific history,and especially biography, has pro-ceeded as a late, controlled version of

imperialism: Pacific historians have, ina sense, colonized their subject matter,

defusing it by subjecting it to the same

concrete-reality-principle controls that

expansive Europe imposed on non-

Europe in the first of Baudet's formu-lations, mastering historical materialsabout the Pacific as imperialistsmastered non-European nature. Thesecond of Baudet's non-Europeanworlds still awaits intelligent, psycho-analytically informed, exploration. 0

'Compiled by Diane Dickson and CarolDossor, University of Hawaii Press, Hono-lulu, 1970.

2Revised and published as "Problems ofPacific history," Journal of Pacific History,1, 1966, pp. 5-22.

3H.E. Maude, "Pacific history-past, presentand future," Journal of Pacific History, VI,1971, pp. 3-24.

4Gregory Dening, "Ethnohistory in Poly-nesia: the value of. ethnohistorical evi-dence," Journal ofPacific History, I, 1966,pp. 23-42.

50'Reilly and Reoul Teissier, Tahitiens:

repertoire bio-bibliographique de la Poly-nésie française. Socidté des Océanistes,Paris, 1962.

6Henri Baudet, Paradise on earth: somethoughts on European images of non-Euro-

pean man, Yale University Press, NewHaven, 1965.

Culture learning...(Continued from page 5)

culture, drawn from its literature, areat some level of generality both possi-ble and legitimate.

3. It is ordinarily the case thatnovelists say what they have to sayabout the culture, not explicitly but

by implication and indirection, bysymbol and metaphor, by dramaticillustration. These very techniques willsometimes be helpful to the culturelearner in getting at meaningful gener-alizations about the culture. If a cer-tain major symbol, for example,evokes a certain kind of a response onthe part of one of the personages inthe novel, it can fairly safely beassumed either that it would evoke asimilar response from other people inthe same culture or that the people ofthat culture would understand whythe response in the novel is idiosyn-cratic and not characteristic of the

general culture.4. The kinds of generalizations

about a culture that have their originsin the analysis and study of the novelsof a culture are usually not advancedas statements of demonstrated or de-monstrable fact. They are best thoughtof as possible insights, illuminations,or explanations, some of which may

not be open to any kind of scientificverification. They result more fromintuition, empathetic attitudes, con-natural knowledge, and poetic feelingthan from exact and prolonged field

study and observation. They tend,

according to the French expression, tobe in the realm of the esprit de finesserather than that of the esprit degeometrie.

In his letter of May 16, 1967 to theFourth Congress of Soviet WritersAlexander Solzhenitsyn stated: "Liter-ature that is not the breath of contem-

porary society, that does not transmitthe pains and fears of that society,that does not warn in time againstthreatening moral and social dangers-such literature does not deserve thename literature; it is only a facade."

Using its genuine literature as oursource, we hope in this activity tocome to a better understanding of thatbreath, namely, the vital spirit or

energizing force, that animates a soci-

ety or culture. We seek to discoverwhat its writers regard as its pains andfears; we would like to know, amongother things, what they perceive to bethe moral and social dangers threaten-

ing the culture and what they proposein order to avoid these dangers. Our

thought is that this kind of study mayhelp enable us to "see other people as

they see themselves" which is one ofthe primary objectives of all culture

learning.

0

1Lionel Trilling. Beyond culture. NewYork: Viking Press 1968. P. 106.

2/hid P. 103.

Participant in Materials DevelopmentProject tests audio equipment for lan-guage teaching at Hawaii CommunityCollege, Hilo. A field trip in April toobserve English language programs in

Neighbor Islands schools was part of theBilingual Education and Foreign/SecondLanguage Materials Development proj-ects.

Culture and Language Learning Newsletter 11

of *

p

I:- ;*\41/4°"

~MI,

University of Hawaii students perform classical Sanskrit drama

entitled "The Vision of Vasavadatta" under the direction of

Culture Learning Institute senior fellow Shanta Gandhi, March

15-24, 1974. In conjunction with the Kennedy Theatre pro-- S duction, the "International Conference on Sanskrit Drama in' - Performance" was held at the East-West Center. Photo by

a Francis Hear.

15,

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