SOURCE: Allen, Paula Gunn, and John Purdy. “‘And Then, Twenty Years Later …’: A Conversation with Paula Gunn Allen.” SAIL: Studies in American Indian Literatures 9, no. 3 (fall 1997): 5-16.

In the following interview, Allen discusses her work and the progress of Native American studies.

The following conversation took place at Chateau de la Bretesche in Brittany on June 25, 1997, immediately following the completion a three-day symposium entitled “Theories of Representation in American Indian Literatures: European and North American Perspectives.” The symposium brought together European and American scholars and Native writers to share research topics and approaches, and the discussions that ensued were enjoyably intense and wide-ranging. Since much of it brought historical contexts to bear on the discussion of Native texts, it seemed only appropriate to discuss the last twenty years with Paula, who was one of the participants in the 1977 Flagstaff conference that resulted in the formation of the Association...