Skip to main content.
Bard
  • Bard
  • Academics sub-menuAcademics
    Bard College Commencement
    • Academics
      • Programs and Divisions
      • Structure of the Curriculum
      • Courses
      • Requirements
      • Discover Bard
      • Bard Abroad
      • Academic Calendar
      • Faculty
      • Libraries
      • College Catalogue
      • Dual-Degree Programs
      • Bard Conservatory of Music
      • Other Study Opportunities
      • Graduate Programs
      • Early Colleges
  • Admission sub-menuAdmission
    • Applying
      • Apply Now
      • Financial Aid
      • Tuition + Payment
    • Discover Bard
      • Campus Tours
      • Meet Our Students + Alumni/ae
      • For Families / Familias
    • Stay in Touch
      • Join Our Mailing List
      • Contact Us
  • Campus Life sub-menuCampus Life
    Bard Campus Life

    Make a home in Annandale.

    • Living on Campus
      • Housing + Dining
      • Campus Resources
      • Get Involved on Campus
      • Visiting + Transportation
      • Athletics + Recreation
      • New Students
  • Civic Engagement sub-menuCivic Engagement
    • Bard CCE The Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) at Bard College embodies the fundamental belief that education and civil society are inextricably linked.

      Take action.
      Make an impact.

      Get Involved
      • Campus + Community
      • In the Classroom
      • U.S. Network
      • International Network
      • About CCE
      • Resources
      • Support
  • Newsroom sub-menuNews + Events
    Upstreaming
    • News + Events
      • Newsroom
      • Events Calendar
      • Video Gallery
      • Press Releases
      • Office of Communications
      • COVID-19 Updates
    • Special Events
      • Commencement Weekend
      • Alumni/ae Reunion
      • Family + Alumni/ae Weekend
      • Fisher Center
      • Bard SummerScape
      • Bard Athletics
  • About Bard sub-menuAbout Bard

    A private college for the public good.

    Support Bard

    Legacy Challenge
    • About Bard College
      • Mission Statement
      • Bard History
      • Love of Learning
      • Visiting Bard
      • Employment
      • OSUN
      • Bard Abroad
      • The Bard Network
      • Montgomery Place Campus
      • Campus Tours
      • Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
      • Sustainability
      • Title IX and Nondiscrimination
      • HEOA Disclosures
      • Institutional Support
      • Safety and Security
      • Inside Bard
      • Alumni/ae Network
      • Family Network
      • Support Bard
      • Legacy Challenge
  • COVID-19 Information
  • Give
  • Search

Bard News

Back to All News

Newsroom Menu
  • Newsroom
  • Events Calendar
  • News Archive
  • Press Releases
  • Video Gallery
  • Special Programs sub-menuSpecial Programs
    • Commencement + Reunion Weekend
    • Family + Alumni/ae Weekend
    • Fisher Center
    • Bard SummerScape
    • Bard Athletics
  • Office of Communications
  • COVID-19 Updates

Research Spotlight: Michèle Dominy

Michèle Dominy. Photo by Noah Sheldon
This article examines the land and its biota as actors in colonialist and postcolonialist processes in Aotearoa-New Zealand. It provides a cultural analysis of Monday's warriors, Maurice Shadbolt's novel of cultural encounter between Maori prophet Titokowaru and nineteenth-century colonials, Herbert Guthrie-Smith's environmental history Tutira: the story of a New Zealand sheep station, and the author's ethnographic fieldwork in the South Island pastoral high country. 

“Crosby devotes one of his chapters to ecological change in nineteenth-century New Zealand - a case study of ecological processes that are 'truly planetary in scope' and with a 'dramatic suddenness and the self-consciousness of those who participated in it [that] has parallels everywhere'. Alan Grey writes: 'The hundred years following 1840 saw the islands that Europeans named New Zealand change from mostly rainforest to mostly grass.' Grey also writes of the remarkable 'speed and thoroughness with which the native flora was stripped and [the land] covered with alien grasses and other plants'. Not only is New Zealand insular and small, developing, in Crosby's words, in 'splendid isolation', but the dramatic biotic changes that accompanied European settlement were observed scientifically and preserved as part of the best-documented history of all European settlements.
[...]
The article argues that introduced grass as a material commodity with social value, and as an instrument of colonial domination and its accompanying agricultural conquest, is an ecological signifier through which identity can be emplaced and land embodied for pakeha and Maori actors. Thinking through grasslands better enables us to consider the mixed authenticities of place and identity. This works as a device for revealing the twisted entanglements within emergent postcolonialism, as Aotearoa, like other settlement nations, collectively invents itself and discovers that there is no fixed place to which one can return” 

pages 15 and 16 in Dominy, Michèle (2002). “Hearing Grass, Thinking Grass: Postcolonialism and Ecology in Aotearoa-New Zealand.” Cultural Geographies 9: 15-34.

Post Date: 08-15-2002
Bard College
Campus Road, PO Box 5000
Annandale-on-Hudson, New York 12504-5000
Phone: 800-BARDCOL
Admission Phone: 845-758-7472
Admission E-mail: [email protected]
©2022 Bard College
Follow Us on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Follow Us on Instagram
You Tube
Information For:
Prospective Students
Current Employees
Alumni/ae 
Families
Quick Links
Employment
Travel to Bard
Site Search
Support Bard