Nicole Perry (PhD ’11) gives talk at “Entangled Gaze” conference in Toronto

Friday, 20 October 2017, 3:30 pm, Art Gallery of Ontario (Jackman Hall)

“German Cultural Appropriations of Indigeneity: ‘Indianer,’ Winnetou, and Indigenous Interventions” Kent Monkman challenges the German image of the stoic Indian through a variety of media. His art, film, performance and installation pieces adjust German portrayals of North American Indigenous life to include Indigenous voices and perspectives. Monkman’s alter ego Miss Chief Eagle Testickle recurs in his work, exposing and embracing Indigenous stereotypes in order to distance them from their German genealogy and revise Indigenous identities. This paper explores how Monkman engages with and challenges (German) colonial pasts and Euro-American tropes of the “Indian.” In addressing the cultural appropriation of the Indigenous image and exposing contemporary Indigenous struggles, Monkman/Miss Chief challenge the “Indianer” stereotype, exemplifying native survivance (Vizenor 1999).

Nicole Perry, PhD, is a lecturer in German at the University of Auckland, and is a Lise Meitner Fellow (2013-17), funded by the Austrian Scientific Fund for her project “Performing Germanness: Reclaiming Aboriginality.” Her research focuses primarily on the German image of America and Native Americans from 1800-present. Her current project reverses the gaze and examines how Indigenous artists from North America reclaim and re-appropriate the German gaze.

For further information see: http://www.entangledgaze.ca