Photo: Jean-Yves Conrad 2005

(Ph.D., Princeton University, 1995)

Professor Perry specializes in French literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries with a focus on poetry. Her academic interests include intellectual history, literary theory, gender studies, representations of North Africa in European literature and painting, and francophone literatures from the Maghreb. Her book, Persephone Unbound: Dionysian Aesthetics in the Works of Anna de Noailles, studies Noailles' poetry and prose in relation to philosophical and aesthetic currents in early 20th-century Europe. Professor Perry has published articles on Ronsard, Stendhal, Balzac, Barrès and Wagner, Anna de Noailles, Gérard d'Houville (Marie de Régnier), Augustine Bulteau, Valéry, Proust, Nicole Brossard, and Malika Oufkir.

Recent publications include:

• “Eros tout puissant: Anna de Noailles et Augustine Bulteau, annonciatrices de Bataille.” Francophonie et intégration européenne. Ed. Ramona Bordei-Boca. Dijon: Université de Bourgogne, Centre Gaston Bachelard, 2006. 349-62.
• "Sensual Deviations and Verbal Abuse: Anna de Noailles in the Critic’s Eye." A Belle Époque? Women and Feminism in French Society and Culture 1890-1910. Ed. Diana Holmes and Carrie Tarr. Polygons: Cultural Diversities and Intersections. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2006. 239-51.
• Persephone Unbound: Dionysian Aesthetics in the Works of Anna de Noailles. Associated University Presses / Bucknell University Press, 2003. (Reviews in Bulletin Marcel Proust 54 [Dec. 2004]: 214-15; Modern Language Review 100.1 [Jan. 2005]: 217-18.)
• "Anna de Noailles." In Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 258, Modern French Poets, 297-310 (Gale Group, 2002).
• "L'Innommable dans La Prisonnière de Malika Oufkir et Michèle Fitoussi." La Revue Française (Natal University, Pietermaritzburg, South African Republic) 10 (December 2000): 77-102.
• "Flagorneur ou ébloui? Proust lecteur d'Anna de Noailles." Bulletin Marcel Proust 49 (1999): 37-53.
• "Reconfiguring Wagner's Tristan: Political Aesthetics in the Works of Maurice Barrès." French Forum 23 (September 1998): 316-335.

Professor Perry's teaching focuses on French and Francophone literatures. She has recently offered courses on Marcel Proust, literature of the fin de siècle and the Belle Époque, Symbolist and Modernist poetry, French travelers to North Africa, 20th-century women writers, 19th-century representations of the feminine, and, for seminars in English, European fiction at the turn of the twentieth century, and rebels, vagrants, and outsiders in French literature and film.

In January 2006, the French Government apointed Professor Perry "Chevalier" (knight) in the "Ordre des Palmes Académiques" for her contribution to the advancement of French culture, education, and the arts. In April 2004, she received a Distinguished Notre Dame Woman Award "for her outstanding contributions made to the University of Notre Dame, her contributions made to her field of endeavor, and her ability to serve as a role model for all women students at the University of Notre Dame." In April 2003 she received a Kaneb Teaching Award, in recognition of her outstanding contributions to undergraduate education. She was also elected to the Arts and Letters Dean's Advisory Committee. In 2001 Professor Perry received the Romance Languages and Literatures Award for Junior Faculty Excellence in Teaching. She is also the recipient of a summer award from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

In 2000-2001 Professor Perry was awarded a Henkels Lecture Series grant, with additional support from several departments and institutes, for the visit to Notre Dame of William C. Carter (University of Alabama at Birmingham, and author of Marcel Proust: A life, Claudia Moscovici (Boston University), Anne Garréta (Université de Rennes, and 2003 recipient of the Prix Médicis for her novel Pas un jour), Susan Slyomovics (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and Moroccan author Malika Oufkir (Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail). For the Program in French and Francophone Studies, Professor Perry secured the Provost's Distinguished Women's Lecturer Award, in support of the visit in February 2001 of Professor Naomi Schor (Yale University). In 2002-2003, Professor Perry organized a concert with French singer Éric Vincent and a lecture by Professor Emanuel J. Mickel, Indiana University. With the Nanovic Institute for European Studies she organized a series of movies entitled "New Rebels in European Film: Britain and France." She obtained funds for this series from the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States, FACSEA (French American Cultural Services and Educational Aid), as well as the Program in Gender Studies at Notre Dame, and she brought two distinguished guests--film director Jean-Pierre Améris and sociolinguist Louis-Jean Calvet from the University of Provence. In 2003-2004, Professor Perry was awarded a Henkels Lecture Series grants as well as a number of other grants for the visits of singer Jacques Yvart, writer and artist Werewere Liking and the Ki-Yi Mbock troupe from Abidjan, Ivory Coast, and French philosopher Daniel Sibony. In spring 2005, with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, she organized the visit of Jacques De Decker, "Secrétaire Perpétuel" at the Royal Belgian Academy of French Letters, and the visit of the Nanovic Institute's Distinguished European Lecturer, Louis-Jean Calvet. In fall 2005, she was awarded a Henkels Visiting Scholars Series grant, in conjunction with multiple co-sponsorships, to bring two Muslim women speakers to Notre Dame, Chahdortt Djavann and Irshad Manji. In March 2006, with the French Cultural Services and several institutes, she organized the visit of Haitian-Swiss "chamanistic" writer Jean-Marc Pasquet.

For more information on courses and syllabi, please visit Professor Perry's home page. And for useful links to literary and cultural sites, please visit her links page. You may also wish to subscribe to the regional list for French and Francophone Studies that she created in 2002 (just send a request by email).

Discussing movie Mauvaises Fréquentations / Bad Company, with French director Jean-Pierre Améris and audience (Hesburgh Library Auditorium, Nov. 14, 2002)