Finding Meaning

Brandy Nalani McDougall is an assistant professor specializing in Indigenous studies in the American Studies Department at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. She is the co-editor of Huihui: Navigating Art and Literature in the Pacific and Home(is)lands: New Writing and Art from Hawai'i and Guåhan and the author of a poetry collection, The Salt-Wind / Ka Makani Paakai.

[Finding Meaning] sets a program for nuanced, historically attuned interpretations of race and ethnicity within ecocritical study and for identifying overlooked conceptions of environmental relation." - American Literature"A major contribution to an understudied field." - Contemporary Pacific"McDougall’s resolute critique of literary history offers a rigorous starting point for teaching Hawaiian literature, with respect and reverence for the deep wealth these stories hold." - American Indian Culture and Research Journal"A landmark publication in the field of Hawaiian literature." - David Chang, author of The Color of the Land: Race, Nation, and the Politics of Landownership in Oklahoma, 1832–1930"Finding Meaning will become a classic of Pacific literary criticism. McDougall shows the aesthetic beauty, literary complexity, and political urgency of contemporary Hawaiian writing." - Craig Santos Perez, author of from unincorporated territory"An essential breath of fresh air in literary criticism giving a Native poet’s readings of the expanse of meaning that can be found in Native literature using Native practice and knowledge. McDougall's work authenticates the vital decolonized artery of encoded interpretation with magnificent pulse. A definitive must-read for all interested in Indigenous literature studies." - Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, author of Streaming