Indigenizing Representations of Turtle Island

Presentation of a research project as part of the "Jeudis de la Maison Suger", a residents' research seminar.

This session will be presented by Nicole Perry, who will offer a reflection on the representations of the Indigenous peoples of North America within the German cultural imagination. Through an examination of the phenomenon of Indianthusiasm and the interventions of contemporary Indigenous artists, the lecture will explore issues of representation, cultural appropriation and reappropriation, as well as intercultural dialogue.

"This talk examines Germany’s long-standing fascination with Indigenous peoples of North America—what scholar Hartmut Lutz calls “Indianthusiasm”. The concept, largely based on the late 19th Century German writer, Karl May and his Winnetou adventure novels (1893) has produced a powerful but largely imagined figure known as the "Indianer". Rather than representing real Indigenous peoples, the "Indianer" is a German cultural construct shaped by romanticism, nationalism, and fantasy. Through a cultural-historical reading of the "Indianer" phenomenon, I argue that German representations of Indigenous peoples reveal far more about German cultural desires and anxieties than about Indigenous realities- past or present. The "Indianer" became a symbol through which Germans imagined freedom, authenticity, closeness to nature, and resistance to modernity. This fascination developed largely independent of direct colonial encounters and became deeply embedded in German literature, film, festivals, and popular culture. The particular interest is on contemporary Indigenous interventions which have transformed Germany’s long-standing fascination with the "Indianer" into a productive site of critique and dialogue. Rather than simply rejecting German representations of Indigenous peoples, Indigenous artists use these representations as opportunities for what Gerald Vizenor calls Native survivance: active Indigenous presence, resistance, and self-representation."

Nicole Perry is a Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature at the University of Auckland. Prior to Auckland, she spent five years at the University of Vienna, researching German representations of Native North America and Indigenous remasterings. Over the years, her research has expanded to include translation, women’s travel writing, Germany/European entanglements in the South Pacific, and contemporary art, primarily set in postcolonial discourses.