Final lecture in Spring 2013 Faculty Lecture Series to be held on April 16

Posted: Apr 11, 2013

Puakea Nogelmeier, professor in the Kawaihuelani Center for Hawaiian Language, will present the final Faculty Lecture of the Spring 2013 semester entitled "Hawaiʻi's Legacy of Literacy." The lecture will be held on Tuesday, April 16 at 3:30 pm. in Hamilton Library room 301.

 

The lecture focuses on the historical development of literacy in Hawai'i which generated a unique repository of knowledge that is an invaluable resource today. The lecture will highlight archival language resources available today and the way they came to be.

 

Nogelmeier is a professor of Hawaiian language at the University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa, where he has taught for 28 years. His BAs in Hawaiian language and Anthropology, his MA in Pacific Islands Studies and PhD in Anthropology were all completed at UH, while beyond the university, he trained for decades in learning Hawaiian language, traditional dance, chant and literature. He has gone through formal training and ceremonial graduation (ʻūniki) as both a dancer (ʻōlapa) and a teacher of the dance (kumu hula). A prolific composer of Hawaiian poetry in both traditional and modern styles, his compositions are widely published and recorded.

 

Nogelmeier works extensively with the various Hawaiian-language archives and is active in rearticulating historical Hawaiian knowledge into fields of study today, producing translations, new presentations and reprintings of archival materials for publication and dissemination. He is the Executive Director of Awaiaulu, training translators and researchers to work with Hawaiian legacy materials and generating access for modern audiences to historical resources.

 

For the last two decades, Hawaiian-language newspapers have been one of his central fields of research and study. Nogelmeier came to Hawaiʻi from Minnesota as an 18-year-old, and not being Hawaiian, has spent most of his adult life learning from respected elders and native speakers who fostered his ever-growing interest in and respect for Hawaiʻi, its people, and Hawaiian knowledge.

 

The Faculty Lecture Series is presented by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research & Graduate Education, the Office of Research Relations and UH Mānoa Library.