Department of Gender Studies

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 "We Must Document Ourselves Now:" Black Lesbian Cultural Legacies and the Politics of Self-Representation, (under contract at The Ohio State University Press), examines the essential, but oft-ignored importance of Black lesbian literature and film in queer literary and film histories. She argues that Black lesbian literature, film, and other visual media reflects the material realities of Black lesbian lived experiences and responds to and resists the heteropatriarchal systems that contribute to the invisibility of Black lesbians in popular and literary culture. Moreover, while Back feminist care work may take a variety of forms, this project insists that Black feminist creative practice is an integral form of self and community care. That is, Black lesbian creative and cultural work creates space for Black lesbians to explore their shared and discrete experiences through their creation of and engagement with other around said work. Dr. Allen teaches courses in popular culture, feminist theory, and Black speculative artistry. She is the recipient of a Trustees Teaching Award (2022) and a Faculty Mentor of the Year Award in Gender Studies (2023). 

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.

• 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.