What role does Paula Gunn Allen’s multiethnic background play in the subjects and themes of her works?

Discuss how the theme of alienation plays a part in Allen’s works.

Discuss how a sense of American Indian tribal community is expressed in Allen’s works.

Allen has said that humor is essential to life. Show how she uses humor to convey her themes.

How is environmentalism central to Allen’s works?

Explain how a poem or story by Allen is indicative of the American Indian perception of levels of reality.

How does Allen show that ceremony is central to American Indian culture in The Sacred Hoop?

Author Profile

Non-Indians have often overlooked the power and significance of women in Indian communities. Paula Gunn Allen’s writing has attempted to reverse this trend and has emphasized Indian women’s strengths in spirituality and storytelling. Allen has also argued that Indian communities have not only included gays and lesbians but have given them respect and freedom.

Allen grew up in a multicultural household in Cubero, New Mexico. Her connection to Laguna Pueblo people comes from her mother’s side of the family; her father was a businessman and politician of Lebanese descent. Since receiving her Ph.D. in American studies from the University of New Mexico in 1975, Allen, a poet, novelist, and scholar, has become one of the most influential voices in Native American literature.

Allen’s best-known works include a novel, The Woman Who Owned the Shadows (1983); a book of essays, The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions (1986); and an anthology, Spider Woman’s Granddaughters: Traditional Tales and Contemporary Writing by Native American Women (1989). The latter won an American Book Award in 1990. Drawing on her experience as a professor of Native American literature, Allen also edited an influential volume of essays and course designs, Studies in American Indian Literature (1983). She has taught at San Francisco State University, the University of New Mexico, Fort Lewis College, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, Los Angeles.

Bibliography

Allen, Paula Gunn. Interview by Quannah Karvar. Los Angeles Times Book Review, January 25, 1987. An interesting interview.

Allen, Paula Gunn. Interview by Robin Pogrebin. The New York Times Book Review, June 3, 1984. Includes biographical information.

Bruchac, Joseph. Survival This Way: Interviews with American Indian Poets. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1987. Situates Allen in the American Indian literary tradition.

Coltelli, Laura. Winged Words: American Indian Writers Speak. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990.

Fisher, Dexter, ed. The Third Woman: Minority Women Writers of the United States. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980.

Hanson, Elizabeth I. Paula Gunn Allen. Edited by Wayne Chatterton and James H. Maguire. Boise, Idaho: Boise State University Press, 1990. A volume in the Boise State University Western Writers series. Includes bibliographical references.

Keating, AnaLouise. Women Reading Women Writing: Self-Invention in Paula Gunn Allen, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Audre Lorde. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996. A critical evaluation that examines these writers as “self-identified lesbians of color.”

Ruoff, A. LaVonne Brown. American Indian Literatures: An Introduction, Bibliographic Review, and Selected Bibliography. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1990. Examines Allen in relation to other American Indian authors. Illustrates how her writing expands traditional definitions of American Indian literature.

Swann, Brian, and Arnold Krupat, eds. I Tell You Now: Autobiographical Essays by Native American Writers. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989. Allen writes of her own experiences as an American Indian, as a writer, and as a teacher.

Paula Gunn Allen’s writing helped establish the literature of her American Indian cultural heritage as a legitimate and recognized genre. In addition to her extensive and innovative catalog of...