Alice Te Punga Somerville

Alice Te Punga Somerville (Te Āti Awa, Taranaki) is a poet, scholar and irredentist.^[1] Dr Te Punga Somerville is the author of Once were Pacific: Māori connections to Oceania which provides the first critical analysis of the disconnections and connections between 'Māori' and 'Pacific'.^[2] Her research work delves into texts by Māori, Pacific and Indigenous peoples that tell Indigenous stories in order to go beyond the constraints of the limited stories told about them.^[3]

Academic career[]

Te Punga Somerville completed a Master of Arts in English at the University of Auckland. She then completed her PhD in English and American Indian Studies at Cornell University in 2004. Since 2017, Te Punga Somerville has held the role of Associate Professor and Associate Dean of Faculty of Māori and Indigenous Studies at University of Waikato. Her previously held academic posts have been Senior Lecturer in the School of English at Victoria University of Wellington (2005 - 2012), Associate Professor Department of English University of Hawai'i at Manoa (2012 - 2015) and Senior Lecturer Department of Indigenous Studies at Macquarie University 2015 - 2017.^{[4] [5]}

Awards[]

• Fulbright Graduate Award recipient to study at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY
• Recipient of a Marsden Fast Start Grant ($140,000) for 'Once Were Pacific'
• Awarded Best First Book from the Native American & Indigenous Studies Association in 2012, for 'Once Were Pacific'
• S.W. Brooks Fellowship 2016, University of Queensland, Australia
• Recipient of Marsden Research Grant ($642,000) for the project 'Writing the new world: Indigenous texts '1900-1975'^[6]

Publications / works[]

• Te Punga Somerville, Alice. "Once were Pacific: Māori connections to Oceania". University of Minnesota Press. 2012.^[7]

• Te Punga Somerville, Alice. "Two Hundred and Fifty Ways to Start an Essay about Captain Cook.". Bridget Williams Books. 2020.^[8]

Work appears in[]

• Rakuraku M. & Manasiadis V. 'Tātai Whetū: Seven Māori Women poets in translation'. Seraph Press. 2018.^[9]
• Alison J. & Hoskins T. 'Critical Conversations in Kaupapa Māori'. Huia Publishers. 2017.^[10]
• Anderson W., Johnson M. & Brookes B. 'Pacific Futures: Past and Present' . University of Hawai‘i Press. 2018.^[11]
• Wendt A., Whaitiri R. & Sullivan R. 'Whetū moana: Contemporary Polynesian poems in English'. Auckland University Press. 2003.^[12]
• Whaitiri R. & Sullivan R. 'Puna Wai Kōrero: An anthology of Māori poems in English. Auckland University Press. 2014.^[13]
• Ruru J. & Nikora L. 'Ngā Kete Mātauranga: Māori Scholars at the Research Interface'. Otago University Press. 2021.^[14]

References[]

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