Center for Australian & New Zealand Studies

The Pacific Muse offers a fresh perspective on a seductively familiar topic: the colonial stereotype of the exotic Pacific island woman. By tracing the evolution of female primitivism from Western antiquity to twentieth-century Hollywood images, the book sheds new light on our understanding of how and why this ideal has persisted and the major role it has played in the colonization of Pacific peoples.  The Pacific Muse shows the continuities and differences in representing colonized women across geographical regions and historical epochs and highlights the importance of sexualization and feminization in imperial enterprises.