Paula Gunn Allen (1939-2008), of Laguna, Sioux, and Lebanese descent, was a literary critic, poet, and novelist, and a noted scholar of Native American literature. During a long and distinguished academic career, she edited numerous seminal texts including The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in Native American Traditions (1986) and Spider Woman’s Granddaughters (1990) as well as works of poetry and critical essays on Native American literature. She was a professor of Native American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.