Alexis Pauline Gumbs

Founder and Director of Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind, Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind

Class Year

2010

Professional Background

After graduating from Duke with a PhD in English, African and African American Studies and Women and Gender Studies, I founded two organizations; The Mobile Homecoming project (an experiential archive amplifying generations of Black LGBTQ Brilliance) and Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind (an all ages intergalactic school that operationalizes black feminist texts as resources for contemporary planetary evolution!) Two components of Brilliance Remastered that might be especially interesting to Duke students are: 1. Black Feminist Film School (a program that screens black feminist films and produces films in a black feminist way) and 2. Brilliance Remastered (a service for under-represented community accountable intellectuals--including students--to stay connected to their communities and purpose as they navigate their intellectual work inside capitalism.)

How has being an English graduate from Duke University help shape your professional success?

I am also a widely published author and my continued relationship with the word has definitely been supported by my time in the Duke English Department. In addition to the many scholarly and poetic journals where my work appears, I am also the editor of the recent book Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines, which brings my archival research on black feminist ideas of mothering from the 1970s and 80s together with the ways marginalized mothers are recreating the world today. My book Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity (Duke Press, Fall 2016) was also supported by my continued engagement with literary theorists like Hortense Spillers during my time at Duke.

Professional Award:

2022 Winner of Whiting Award

Alexis Pauline Gumbs