About
Mary Cook is a doctoral candidate in UBC’s French department. She holds an MA in Teaching from the University of the Incarnate Word and a BA in English from the University of Otago. Her research focuses on French and British colonisation in the South Pacific, with particular attention to how word choice in non-fiction texts establishes and maintains structures of power between settlers and the Indigenous Mā’ohi inhabitants of the Society Islands.
Research
Interests
- Polynesian cultures
- Myth, religion, and ritual
- Colonialism
- Deconstructionism
Awards
- Teaching Assistant Award, 2023
- Dorothy Dallas Scholarship, 2022
- Benjamin John Edinger Memorial Prize in French Literature, 2022
Graduate Supervision
Graduate supervisor: Dr. Farid Laroussi
Conferences and Conference Presentations
“Anti-Catholicism in Diderot’s representation of Mā’ohi faith”, UBC FHIS Annual Symposium, University of British Columbia, May 2023
“From the trunk of Taputapuatea to the mountains of Turehu: Prophecies of contact as Indigenous resistance and survival”, Plaiting Stories: Reflections on Indigenous Networks, University of British Columbia, December 2022
“Ke-ala-i-kahiki: Undermining linguistic ideologies towards Polynesian languages”, Movement(s), Australian Society for French Studies, December 2022
“Upside-down and scattered: The representation of Oceania in the anti-utopian works of Robida and Souvestre”, New Directions in Utopian Studies, Utopian Studies Society, July 2022
“The Anti-utopia and Oceania”, UBC FHIS Annual Symposium, University of British Columbia, May 2022