“In the following radio interview, aired seven months before her death in 2008, Dr. Video: “The Sacred Hoop” (Part 1), with Dr. “Professor Gunn Allen was one of the most widely respected and accomplished scholars and writers in the history of American Indian studies in this country.” Hubbell Medal for American Literature.Īllen died in California in 2008 at the age of 68 after a long battle with lung cancer, surrounded by family and friends. “This is a profound loss for the American Indian academic and creative community,” said Hanay Geiogamah, interim director of the UCLA American Indian Studies Center.

In 1999, the Modern Language Association awarded her the J. She served as a professor of English at and American Indian studies at UCLA from 1990-1999 before retiring.Īllen received an American Book Award, the Native American Prize for Literature, the Susan Koppelman Award, and a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas in 2001. She published The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions in 1986, effectively introducing the topic to scholars in America and prompting similar arguments from her fellow Native American feminists.Īside from working directly in the literary field, Allen also taught at a number of universities across the United States, including Fort Lewis College in Colorado and UCLA. She was also a scholar,īreaking ground in the topic of Western patriarchal societies as they affect the view of Native American life. She compiled several anthologies on similar topics, such as Spider Woman’s Granddaughters: Traditional Tales & Contemporary Writing by Native American Women (1989) and Song of the Turtle: American Indian Literature, 1974-1994 (1996). from the University of New Mexico, Allen had published her first book of poetry, The Blind Lion (1974).Īllen’s work is often centered around the intersection of feminism and Native American life.

By the time she had graduated with her P.h.D.

Despite mixed heritage (Lebanese-American, Laguna, Sioux, and Scottish), Allen identified most closely with the Laguna Pueblo culture which she grew up in.Īllen initially left college to get married, but after two children and a divorce returned to earn her B.A. Paula Gunn Allen grew up in the 1940s in Cubero, New Mexico, right outside the Laguna Pueblo reservation.

Off the Reservation by Paula Gunn Allen