Rate My Professor Michael Reilly

Professor Michael Reilly is a professor in Te Tumu: School of Māori, Pacific and Indigenous Studies at the University of Otago, where he holds the position of Chair of the Te Tumu Postgraduate Committee. He earned an MA from Victoria University of Wellington and a PhD from the Australian National University. Reilly joined the University of Otago in 1991 with a joint appointment in Māori Studies and the Department of History, transitioning to a full-time role in Māori Studies in 1996. He advanced to full professor in 2009 and assumed key leadership positions, serving as Acting Dean from 2007 to 2009 alongside Professor Alistair Fox, and as Dean of Te Tumu from 2012 following Paul Tapsell's departure to focus on research. His extensive supervisory record includes 35 completed postgraduate theses, among them 10 PhDs, and mentorship of staff members who progressed to professorships, such as Professors Poia Rewi, Rawinia Higgins, and Nathan Matthews. Reilly teaches courses including MAOR 207: Ngā Kōrero Nehe – Tribal Histories, MAOR 407: Presenting Pacific Histories, and INDS 307: Ancient East Polynesian Histories, and delivers guest lectures in MAOR 102: Māori Society and PUBH 204: Hauora Māori.

Reilly's scholarship centers on Polynesian historical traditions, forms and content of oral traditions, and the roles of collectors of Polynesian traditions, encompassing both European figures like John White and William Wyatt Gill and indigenous scholars such as Mamae of Mangaia. Motivated by shared Pacific concepts of the past as 'ngā taonga tuku iho' (treasures passed down), his research explores historical texts from Mangaia in the Cook Islands and Aotearoa/New Zealand, alongside themes of ancient Polynesian leadership, emotions, narrative styles, and cultural landscapes, with particular attention to the histories of Mangaia, Māori chiefly families of Otago, and Ruapuke Island (Murihiku). Key publications include 'Minor elements of the Māui story in Aotearoa and Te Waipounamu and their cultural connections to wider Polynesia' (Journal of the Polynesian Society, 2024), 'Māui, Polynesian culture hero: A nineteenth century tradition from Ruapuke Island' (Journal of New Zealand Studies, 2023), 'Manuscript XXXIX: Mamae of Mangaia: Nineteenth century pastor and tribal historian' (Journal of Pacific History, 2022), 'Emotions in the Pacific' in The Routledge History of Emotions in the Modern World (2022), and 'Talking traditions: Orality, ecology, and spirituality in Mangaia's textual culture' in Indigenous Textual Cultures (2020).