What is significant about the history of civilization on Easter Island? Why did the Dodo become extinct on Mauritius? What kind of "country" is Bermuda? Why does Puerto Rico not want to become independent? Why does Madagascar have such a large number of endemic species? How did the islanders of Nauru go from riches to rags? Why are there so few islands divided amongst two or more political powers? What are the similarities between Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland?
Island Studies is an interdisciplinary program designed to promote an understanding of selected features of the world's small islands, including their geographies, ecologies, cultures, political systems, histories, and societies.
The Island Studies program has four primary goals:
- to engage students in an emerging, international academic discussion of islands' distinctive characteristics, challenges, and opportunities
- to study Prince Edward Island as a specific example of an island bearing these characteristics and playing out these challenges and opportunities
- to study islands, and island related issues, in a comparative, regional and international framework
- to discuss the ways in which island events and processes provide lessons to other (including mainland) jurisdictions
Prince Edward Islanders may call PEI "the Island," but they know that heir island shares the world's seas with many similar islands. Each sea-bound stretch of land faces its own particular challenges, but international discussions among the world's island peoples continue to reveal many characteristics that islands share.
The interdisciplinary Minor in Island Studies at the University of rince Edward Island allows students to study some of the specific characteristics of islands. Some courses focus on one island — " Prince Edward Island" — but that one island is understood within an nternational, comparative framework, among other islands whose differences and similarities offer limitless lessons.
The lessons of the "island studies" perspective come from many disciplines. They include geography, sociology, education, economics and political studies; from biology and ecology; from literature and history. As an interdisciplinary program, UPEI's Minor in Island Studies encourages students to make critical connections among studies from diverse fields: obliged to focus on islands, they can witness how the different disciplinary foci can come to connect and onverge on specific events or locations.
The University of Prince Edward Island is uniquely placed to offer Canada's only Minor in Island Studies. The University houses the Institute of Island Studies (one of the world's leading small islands research and public policy institutes), a Canada Research Chair in Island Studies, a Master of Arts in Island Studies and a web-based
. The academic program in Island Studies balances the University's traditional strength in researching and teaching Prince Edward Island topics with its increasing reputation for advancing international and comparative island studies.
The Islands Minor offers two key courses:
"Introduction to Island Studies" (IS 201)
introduces students to the
study of islands. Their location and physical characteristics; their flora and fauna; their human settlement and impact on the environment; their role in the European 'Age of Discovery'; their current economic development challenges; the impacts of tourism, migration and offshore finance centres.
"Case Studies in Island Studies" (IS 202)
introduces students to the case study technique and its usefulness for a better and more critical understanding of "island studies" in context. Issues to be discussed will be multi-disciplinary, and will include political, economic and environmental concerns. The course will also impart basic geographical skills (including map reading) and knowledge to students.
