The Center extends an enthusiastic congratulations to #CPISgraduate and newly minted Dr. Leora Kava, affectionately known as Lee. She successfully defended her doctoral dissertation, “Matala: Poems,” earlier this week completing the final requirement of her PhD program in Creative Writing from the Department of English at the Univeristy of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM). Lee will begin a Fulbright award this summer in Tonga for the 2019-2020 academic year, after which she will begin her appointment in fall 2020 as Assistant Professor in the departments of Race & Resistance Studies and Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University (SFSU). As part of this appointment, she will contribute to the development of the Critical Pacific Studies minor within the College of Ethnic Studies at SFSU.
Lee completed a BA in East Asian language and literature with a concentration in Chinese language and history at Brown University. She then completed an MA in Pacific Islands Studies at CPIS where she was a Graduate Assistant. Lee is a hafekasi poet and musician of Tongan descent and the founder of the Pacific Verse project, a community-based workshop series that works with participants to create original poetry and music using indigenous Pacific languages. She belongs to her families, students, and communities, and dedicates her work to the genealogies of creativity and liberation in Oceania. While working on her PhD, Lee taught as a lecturer in Pacific Islands Studies, English, and Ethnic Studies at UHM. Her research focuses on Tongan poetics, indigenous theory and politics, Pacific Studies, and Pacific literary studies. Congratulations Lee, and all the best in Tonga and at SFSU ! #CPIStudentLife