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You are here: Home / Mixed Experience History Month / Mixed Experience History Month 2017: Paula Gunn Allen, writer and scholar

Mixed Experience History Month 2017: Paula Gunn Allen, writer and scholar

May 17, 2017 by admin Leave a Comment

Paula Gunn Allen, born in 1939 in New Mexico, was the daughter of a Lebanese-American man and a Laguna-Sioux-Scotch woman.  She once described herself as a “multicultural event.”

Her early education was at mission schools; she went on to earn several advanced degrees including a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Oregon and a Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico in 1976.

Allen was a pioneer of Native American literary scholarship.  With the publication of her book, The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions (1986), she helped define the canon of Native American literature.

Allen was also a prolific writer of poems, fiction and essays publishing 17 books during her lifetime.  She received several awards for her work including the American Book Award, and the Hubbell Medal.

Twice married and twice divorced, Allen identified herself as a lesbian at one point, but later said she was a “serial bisexual.”

She died in 2008 of lung cancer.  She was 68.-Heidi Durrow


Mixed Experience History Month is the annual blog post series created by The New York Times best-selling author Heidi Durrow celebrating the history of the Mixed experience. Established in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to highlight the long history of folks and events involved in the Mixed experience.  Please look for archived profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May!  Thanks for reading.  And check out some of the previous year’s profiles: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012,  2013, 2014, 2015, 2016.

Filed Under: Mixed Experience History Month Tagged With: biracial, biracial historical figures, interracial, mixed race historical figures, mixed race history, multiracial, multiracial artists

« Mixed Experience History Month 2017: Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, Educator & Activist
Season 4, Episode 19: Writer/Literary Critic Janet Savage »

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Host Heidi Durrow

Host Heidi Durrow

Heidi Durrow is the New York Times best-selling writer of The Girl Who Fell From the Sky and the founder of the original mixed roots film and book festival and now the founder of Mixed Remixed Festival , an annual film, book and performance festival, which will be held next on June 10-11, 2016 at … [Read More]

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  • Season 5, Episode 3: Award-Winning Writer Amina Gautier November 14, 2017
  • Season 5, Episode 2: New York Times Bestselling Writer Julie Lythcott-Haims October 12, 2017
  • Season 4, Episode 19: Writer/Literary Critic Janet Savage July 3, 2017
  • Mixed Experience History Month 2017: Paula Gunn Allen, writer and scholar May 17, 2017
  • Mixed Experience History Month 2017: Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, Educator & Activist May 16, 2017

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