Stephanie Andrea Allen

Stephanie Andrea Allen

Assistant Professor, Gender Studies

Affiliate Faculty, Center for the Research of Race and Ethnicity in Society

Education

  • Ph.D., American Studies, Purdue University, 2015
  • Graduate certificate in Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies,
  • M.A, Auburn University, 2007
  • B.A, Columbus State University, 2005

About Stephanie Andrea Allen

Stephanie Andrea Allen, Ph.D. is an interdisciplinary humanities scholar, creative writer, small press publisher, and Assistant Professor of Gender Studies at Indiana University. Her research centers Black lesbian cultural histories and Black feminisms through various expressions, including literature, film, and other print and visual media. Her current book project examines how Black lesbian literature and film reflects the material realities of Black lesbian lived experiences, as well as how it responds to and resists the heteropatriarchal systems that contribute to the invisibility of Black lesbians in popular and literary culture.

Dr. Allen is also Publisher and Editor-in-Chief at BLF Press, and co-editor of Serendipity Literary Magazine. Her creative work can be found in various online and print publications, including The Black Femme Collective, Mom Egg Review, Star*Line, Inkwell Black, Big Echo: Critical Science Fiction Magazine, Sinister Wisdom, and in her two short story collections, A Failure to Communicate and How to Dispatch a Human: Stories and Suggestions.

Publications

  • “I Am a Lesbian: Black Queer Subjectivities in The Watermelon Woman and Pariah.” Forthcoming in Women, Gender, and Families of Color.
  •  “The Unbearable Whiteness of Lesbian Studies.” Forthcoming 2022 in Feminists Talk Whiteness. Eds. Leigh-Anne Francis and Janet Gray.
  • Review of Queer Timing: The Emergence of Lesbian Sexuality in Early Cinema by Susan Potter. Quarterly Review of Film and Video. Fall 2020. DOI: 10.1080/10509208.2020.1823133.
  • “Who’s Your Mammy? Tyler Perry and the Limits of Black Spectatorship.” The Problematic Perry. Ed. Brian C. Johnson. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. 2016. 79-91.
  • “Ethnicity and Sexual Identity in the United States,” The International Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality. Eds. Patricia Whelehan and Anne Bolin. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2015. 353-356.
  • “Sexual Stereotypes about Ethnic Minorities in the United States,” The International Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality. Eds. Patricia Whelehan and Anne Bolin. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2015. 1296-1300.

Selected Creative Writing

  • Sinister Wisdom 122: Writing Communities. Eds. Stephanie Andrea Allen and Lauren Cherelle. Fall 2021.
  • “On Rest and Restraint.” The Black Femme Collective. Winter 2022.
  • “Safely, and Without Incident.” Mom Egg Review, Vol. 19. 2021.
  • How to Dispatch a Human: Stories and Suggestions. Bloomington, BLF Press, 2021.
  • “Dirty, Warped, and Cracked.” Inkwell Black Literary Magazine, Spring 2021.
  • “A Sonnet for Sunday Dinner in Space.” Star*Line, 43.4. Fall 2020.
  • Black From the Future: A Collection of Black Speculative Writing. Eds. Stephanie Andrea Allen and Lauren Cherelle. Clayton: North Carolina, BLF Press. 2019
  • "On Black Lesbian Femme Invisibility." Sinister Wisdom, Editor. Julie R. Enszer no. 107, 2018, pp. 78-85.
  • A Failure to Communicate. Clayton: North Carolina, BLF Press. 2017.

Courses Taught

Undergraduate

  • GNDR-G 101  Gender, Culture, and Society
  • GNDR-G 206  Gay Histories, Queer Cultures
  • GNDR-G 225  Gender, Sexuality, and Popular Culture
  • GNDR-G 300  Core Concepts and Key Debates in Gender Studies
  • GNDR-G 402  “Don’t Explain:” Gender, Sexuality, and Black Women’s Writing

Graduate

  • GNDR-G 598  Feminist Theory: Classic Texts and Founding Debates
  • GNDR-G 701  “Imagine That:” Gender and Sexuality in the Black Speculative Arts