Political Editorials by Craig Santos Perez
What are Marine National Monuments? President Obama recently announced plans to expand (http://ww... more What are Marine National Monuments? President Obama recently announced plans to expand (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ obama-will-propose-vast-expansion-of-pacific-ocean-marine-sanctuary/2014/06/16/f8689972-f0c6-11e3-bf76-447a5df6411f_story.html) the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument from 87,000 square miles to nearly 782,000 square miles. Despite the media framing this move as a victory for ocean conservation, the truth is that these monuments will further colonize, militarize, and privatize the Pacific. Many mistakenly refer to marine "monuments" as "sanctuaries" because they are both "marine protected areas." However, an official sanctuary is designated by the Secretary of Commerce under the National Marine Sanctuaries Act, which requires "extensive public process, local
Essays by Craig Santos Perez
This commentary responds to David Chandler and Jonathan Pugh's (2021) thought-provoking article, ... more This commentary responds to David Chandler and Jonathan Pugh's (2021) thought-provoking article, 'Anthropocene Islands: There Are Only Islands After the End of the World'. It begins by highlighting the new visibility of Pacific islands and islanders in the discourses and media coverage of climate change and the Anthropocene. I argue that scholars need to be critical of reductionist representations of the Pacific and should, instead, highlight the complexities of Pacific agency, complexity, and subjectivity in order to think more fully about the Anthropocene in the Pacific. Moreover, scholars should delve into the Pacific humanities to become attuned to how Pacific Islanders are feeling the precarity and urgency of climate change.
Ethnic Studies Review , 2020
https://thegeorgiareview.com/posts/teaching-ecopoetry-in-a-time-of-climate-change/

Humanities, 2020
This essay will explore the complex relationship between Pacific Islander Literature and the "Blu... more This essay will explore the complex relationship between Pacific Islander Literature and the "Blue Humanities," navigation traditions and canoe aesthetics, and Chamoru migration and diaspora. First, I will chart the history, theory, and praxis of Pacific voyaging traditions; the colonial history of restricting indigenous mobilities; and the decolonial acts of seafaring revitalization in the Pacific (with a specific focus on Guam). Then, I will examine the representation of seafaring and the ocean-going vessel (the canoe) as powerful symbols of Pacific migration and diasporic cultural identity in the context of what Elizabeth DeLoughrey termed, "narrative maritime legacies" (2007). Lastly, I will conduct a close-reading of the avant-garde poetry collection, A Bell Made of Stones (2013), by Chamoru writer Lehua Taitano. As I will show, Taitano writes about the ocean and navigation in order to address the history and traumas of Chamoru migration and diaspora. In terms of poetic form, I will argue that Taitano's experimentation with typography and visual poetry embodies Chamoru outrigger design aesthetics and navigational techniques. In the end, I will show how a "Blue Humanities" approach to reading Pacific Islander literature highlights how the "New Oceania" is a profound space of Pacific migration and diasporic identity. , among others-who draw attention to the material and symbolic surfaces and depths of the ocean to show how the ocean shapes human knowledge, experiences, histories, politics, economies, cultures, and identities. Several other brilliant scholars-including Elizabeth DeLoughrey, Margaret Cohen, Steve Mentz, and Teresa Shewry-have emphasized how the real and symbolic presence of the sea shapes the themes and forms of oral and written storytelling traditions and texts. More recently, a flotilla of special issues in the PMLA ("Oceanic Studies"), Atlantic Studies ("Oceanic Studies"), Comparative Literature ("Oceanic Routes"), and English Language Notes ("Hydro-Criticism") have further articulated an "oceanic turn." The scholars in these issues-including DeLoughrey, Hester Blum, Kerry Bystrom, Isabel Hofmeyr, Ashley Cohen, and Laura Winkiel, among others-envision a "transoceanic imaginary" and new "sea ontologies," "metageographies," and "metaphorics of the sea" that move beyond the boundaries and methodologies of land and nation-state based perspectives, while also foregrounding the colonization, territorialization, and militarization of the oceans. They map a "Critical Ocean Studies" that flows across disciplines; dives into submarine depths and submersions; swims into multispecies entanglements; intersects with feminist, indigenous, and diasporic epistemologies; recognizes the agency of a warming, rising ocean; and transforms our critical inquiries and reading practices.
English Language Notes, 2020
The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, 2020
Oceanic Archives, Indigenous Epistemologies, and Transpacific American Studies, 2019
Ecopoetics and the Global Landscape: Critical Essays , 2019
Interviews & Book Reviews by Craig Santos Perez
Collection of my published book reviews.
Poetics Essays by Craig Santos Perez
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Political Editorials by Craig Santos Perez
Essays by Craig Santos Perez
Interviews & Book Reviews by Craig Santos Perez
Poetics Essays by Craig Santos Perez