Alexis Pauline Gumbs

About Fellow

Alexis Pauline Gumbs is a community cherished Black feminist scholar and author. Dr. Gumbs received her BA in American Studies from Barnard and her PhD in English, Africana Studies and Women and Gender Studies from Duke. She is the author or editor of seven books, including Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines (PM Press, 2016), Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity (Duke Press, 2016), Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals (AK Press, 2020) and Survival is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2024)

Gumbs collaborated with composer and visionary Esperanza Spalding, and visual ritual artist Bronte Velez, on the recent Carnegie Hall immersive performance A Homemade Field of Love in honor of Fannie Lou Hamer and June Jordan. She has also collaborated with the freedom music oracle Toshi Reagon on multiple projects including Long Water Song and the forthcoming performance Ecotones along with urban planner Danielle Spurlock and geographer Danielle Purifoy. 

Gumbs’s primary collaborator is her partner, the artist Sangodare Julia Wallace. Together Gumbs and Wallace direct multiple community accountable projects including Black Feminist Film School, Mobile Homecoming (an experiential archive and living library of queer Black genius), the Chrysalis Life Purpose Roadmap, September: A Podcast for Loveships, Black Feminist Bookmobile and more.

Gumbs has been a National Humanities Center Fellow, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow and Monument Lab Fellow. She has been honored with the Whiting Award in Nonfiction, a Windham Campbell Award in Poetry, among other honors. Gumbs lives in Durham, North Carolina, where she opens her heart and aspires to be a favorite cousin to all lifeforms. 

Selected Publications

• Gumbs, Alexis Pauline. Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024.
• Gumbs, Alexis Pauline. Dub: Finding Ceremony. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2020.
• Gumbs, Alexis Pauline. Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals. Chico, CA: AK Press, 2020.
• Gumbs, Alexis Pauline. M Archive: After the End of the World. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018.
• Gumbs, Alexis Pauline. Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016.