Alice Te Punga Somerville

Alice was born in Wellington, grew up in Glen Innes, Auckland and her qualifications include a BA in English and History, and an MA (with 1st class honours) in English from Auckland University, and a PhD from Cornell University. She is a lecturer in English at Te Kawa a Māui – School of Māori Studies and the English Programme at the University of Victoria, Wellington. Alice ‘specialises in Māori, Pacific and Indigenous writing in English. In her research and teaching, she brings Literary and Cultural Studies together with Indigenous Studies, because she agrees with Cherokee writer Thomas King when he says "the truth about stories is that's all we are." She also writes the occasional poem.’

In 1997 she was awarded a University of Auckland Māori and Polynesian Masters Scholarship and in 2000 received a Fulbright Graduate Award. She was the recipient of a Cornell University Sage Fellowship in 2002 and In 2006 she received a Marsden Fast Start award. In 2009 she was a visiting scholar at the Macquarie University Warawara Department of Indigenous Studies. Her first book, Once Were Pacific: Māori Connections to Oceania (Minnesota) was published in 2012.

At its heart Alice's research is about locating, contextualizing, and analyzing texts written by Māori, Pacific and Indigenous people. Dr Te Punga Somerville's work is underpinned by her belief that (Māori, Pacific and/ or Indigenous peoples) are constrained when the stories about them are limited. In Alice's scholarship, she therefore focus on written texts as evidence, sites and foundations of stories that are far more complex than those that are told about us by other people or even those that are generally told by ourselves. Dr Te Punga Somerville's MA (Auckland) and PhD (Cornell) focused on the written literatures of her own Māori community, and as she deliberately sought broader contexts for exploring this writing she developed a twin interest and expertise in Indigenous and Pacific studies.

"Alice has served on the executive of Te Pouhere Kōrero (Māori historians association) and the foundation council for NAISA (Native American and Indigenous Studies Assoc), and have co-chaired SPACLALS (South Pacific Association for Commonwealth Language and Literary Studies). Alice is on the editorial boards of Native American and Indigenous Studies, American Quarterly and The Contemporary Pacific."

Biographical sources

• “Alice Te Punga Somerville.” Whetu Moana: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English. Ed. Albert Wendt, Reina Whaitiri and Robert Sullivan. Auckland, N.Z.: Auckland UP, 2003. 215.
• “Dr Alice Te Punga Somerville.” Te Kawa A Maui – School of Måori Studies. http://www.victoria.ac.nz/maori/staff/alice-tepungasomerville.aspx
• http://www.mq.edu.au/about_us/faculties_and_departments/faculty_of_arts/department_of_indigenous_studies/staff/dr_alice_te_punga_somerville/ 10 September 2016