Alexis Pauline Gumbs is an American writer, independent scholar, poet, activist and educator based in Durham, North Carolina.[1][2] Gumbs advocates for other POC queer women and is commonly known as a “Black Feminist love evangelist,”[3] but she also describes herself as a "Queer Black Troublemaker."[4] In her experimental triptych (Spill, M Archive, and Dub), Gumbs explores the implications of humanity’s struggle with ecological disruption and Black feminist theory and refusals.[5]
Biography
Gumbs holds a PhD in English, African and African-American Studies, and Women and Gender Studies from Duke University.[6]
Gumbs was the Winton Chair in the Liberal Arts in the Department of Theater Arts and Dance at the University of Minnesota (2017–2019).[6] Gumbs is the Founder and Director of Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind and founder of BrokenBeautiful Press.[7][8] She is the dramaturge for "dat Black Mermaid Man Lady", a performance by Sharon Bridgforth.[9] Additionally, she and collaborator Sangodare co-founded the Black Feminist Film School.[10]
Gumbs has spent the majority of her career as an independent writer and scholar outside of formal academic institutions.[11][12] She characterizes her writing as genre-defying.[13] Her writing and activism is influenced by the work of her grandmother Lydia Gumbs who designed the flag of Anguilla during the country’s 1967 revolution,[14] as well as Audre Lorde, June Jordan, M. Jaqui Alexander, Dionne Brand, and others. In fact, Gumbs attributes her desire to attend Barnard College partially to June Jordan.[15] Alexis Pauline Gumbs has been recognized as “The Pride of Anguilla” by the Anguilla Literary Festival.[16] Gumbs teaches online seminars, writes blog posts, and runs webinars through her website Brilliance Remastered.[11] During online seminars, she often invites participants to engage in group poetry.[17] Because she does not work at a university, she has participated in conversations about how intellectual work can be more path breaking and widely accessible outside of the academy.[12]
The first book in her trilogy and is a collection of poetry that engages in consistent dialogue with Hortense Spillers’ anthology titled Black, White, and in Color: Essays on American Literature and Culture.[22] The poetry included is written with black women in mind rather than about them and explores how black women can utilize poetry for liberation.[23] Gumbs’ “speculative history” imagines a world inherited by black women and flows between inherited memories, historical references, and a recollection of visions.[24]Spill unites the creative work of all black women through the art of poetry, citing solely black women throughout the book.
Gumbs’ second book in her trilogy centers on concepts of black life and black metaphysics from a feminist perspective and is in conversation with Pedagogies of Crossing by M. Jacqui Alexander.[26] She uses the book to create space for readers to be mindful of ongoing societal issues like environmental degradation, anti-blackness, and corrupt systems of capitalism through recognizing indigenous knowledge systems and the significance of black writers' work. In the format of a “speculative documentary,” Gumbs paints a picture highlighting the ideologies of feminist theory, rooted in the metaphysical, to demonstrate the unsustainable nature of modern life and the detriment of reliance on digital archives.[27]
DUB: Finding Ceremony (2020)
The third book of Gumbs’ trilogy encourages readers to think critically about the connection between the individual and the collective, pushing the audience to consider marine life as a metaphor for the black social condition.[28] Gumbs outwardly draws on Jamaican writer Sylvia Wynter and the dub rhythm for inspiration in the book.[29] She creates an interdisciplinary handbook guiding black people in managing modern struggles such as police violence, environmental degradation, and the exploitation of developing nations. The final book in Gumbs’ trilogy emphasizes interspecies relations and the significance of black ancestral and archival silence, giving insights into black feminist theory.[30]
Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals (2020)
Gumbs’ book reflects on marine mammal behavior's ideological and cultural significance, encouraging readers to reevaluate how society undervalues black women and humans' connection to nature.[31] She divides her book into twenty sections, with the first nineteen using a unique marine mammal’s behavior to teach a different lesson directed toward helping black women navigate the struggles of modern America.[32] Gumbs explores the universality of breathing and how it connects all life, refuting Euro-Western ecological superiority. She also looks at hyper-visibility, direct action, and alternative education models. She uses marine mammals to investigate interlocking forms of oppression, recognizing how discrimination pervades the classification of aquatic life. [33]
Edited volumes
Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Frontlines (2016) – co-editor with Mai’a Williams and China Martens. This book focuses on the activity of mothering.[34]
