Emelihter Kihleng completed her PhD in Va’aomanū Pasifika, Pacific Studies from Victoria University of Wellington in Aotearoa New Zealand. Her dissertation, Menginpehn Lien Pohnpei: a poetic ethnography of urohs (Pohnpeian skirts), is a bilingual and creative exploration of a genealogy of Pohnpeian women’s menginpeh or handiwork from tattooing to cloth production to poetry, another kind of dynamic textual and textured “writing” that responds to urohs, a highly valued textile and distinct form of dress. Emeli has worked as an interim Curator, Pacific Cultures at The National Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and taught at the University of Guam and the College of Micronesia-FSM in Pohnpei. Her first collection of poetry, My Urohs, was published by Kahuaomānoa Press in 2008. Her work has also appeared in other national and international literary journals and anthologies. The daughter of a white American mother and Pohnpeian father, Emeli was raised in Pohnpei, Guam and Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. She is currently the Distinguished Writer in Residence in the English Department at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. (Photo by Pasifika@Vic)
Profile
Position: Distinguished Writer in Residence
Organization: English Dept., University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Contact: emeliki@gmail.com
Website:
Areas of Focus
- Arts
- Culture
- Indigenous Values
- Literature
- Women’s Rights
Language
- Pohnpeian