Nicole Perry

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.

The project

Title: "Taking Control of the Narrative": Contemporary Indigenous Voices and Remasterings of the "Dead Indian Image"

"In his award winning book “The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America” Cherokee Thomas King informs us that there are three types of Indian: Dead, Live and Legal. The distinction for North America, between Dead Indians and Live Indians is as follows: “Dead Indians are dignified, noble, silent, suitably garbed. And dead. Live Indians are invisible, unruly, disappointing. And breathing. One is a romantic reminder of a heroic but fictional past. The other is simply an unpleasant, contemporary surprise (66). Legal Indians are those Indians who are recognized as being Indians by the Canadian and US governments (68). It is a witty, darkly humourful account that undermines the dominant view of Indigenous/White relations. This project interrogates the "Dead Indian" image in a contemporary European context. Working with Prof. Eric Maigret at the Universite Sorbonne Nr 3 in examining Indigenous multimedia/literary/artistic responses to this image, the project also seeks to examine the legacy of the Canadian Residential school system through conference presentations in France and Switzerland. At one conference organized at the Universite de Pau by three scholars of North America."

Hosting Institution(s): Université Sorbonne Nouvelle

Selective bibliography

• The Tragedy of a Woman: Alma Karlin and the Fragmented Self. Towards a Better Me: Self Optimization in Modernist Culture. Thorsten Carstensen, Mattias Pirholt, ed. Brill Press, Leiden, NL: 2025: 238-255.
• Between Globalization and Emancipation: The Travel Writing of Charles Sealsfield and Alma Karlin. Master of the World? Charles Sealsfields Amerika zwischen Emancipation, Exzeptionalismus und Globalisierung. Walter Grünzweig, Wynfrid   Kriegleder, ed., Praesens Verlag, Vienna, 2025: 165-178.
• A Separation of Sameness: (East) German Indianthusiasm, Ostalgie, and Kent Monkman’s Intervention. In: Runtić, S., Marešová, J., Kolinská, K. (eds) (Un)Following in Winnetou’s Footsteps. Springer, Singapore, 2024: 41-59.
• Writing from the Periphery: Alma Karlin's Autobiography, Travel Writing and the Journey        towards Self-Discovery. Austrian Studies 31, Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore, 2023: 106-120.