Brown Bag Biography with Kayla Watabu

October 19, 12:00pm - 1:15pm
Mānoa Campus, Kuykendal 410

The Center for Biographical Research presents: /鈥淢akawalu Perspectives on Silence: Reimagining the 鈥楪aps鈥 as Stories鈥 / Kayla Watabu, PhD student and Assistant Director of the Writing Center, University of Hawai驶i at 惭腻苍辞补 /As stories are central for many Indigenous communities in nourishing relationships, the fracturing created by dispossession and disconnection can interrupt this kinship caretaking process, which results in silences that are often fraught with violence and trauma. In this presentation, Kayla Watabu considers her own journey in decolonizing her body and shares the process of tracing her mo鈥榦k奴鈥榓uhau while reinterpreting the silences of her ancestors through multiple cultural and historical lenses. This act of makawalu traces a succession of abundant stories hidden within the silences, thereby writing and speaking them with ea and mana. / Kayla Watabu is a Ph.D. student in the English Department where she currently serves as the UH 惭腻苍辞补 Writing Center驶s Assistant Director. Her article, titled 鈥淪ilence as Storytelling: Makawalu Perspectives on the 鈥楪aps鈥欌 (under review), explores how inherited silences within family histories can be reimagined by moving through cultural and historical lenses to ultimately transform those absences into abundance. / Cosponsored by Hamilton Library, the Hawai驶inui膩kea School of Hawaiian Knowledge, the Center for Oral History, the Matsunaga Institute, Conflict and Peace Specialist, the School of Communication & Information, the Departments of Departments of American Studies, English, Ethnic Studies, and Sociology / Thursday, October 19 / KUY 410 / 12 noon to 1:15PM HST


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Center for Biographical Research, Mānoa Campus

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