Oppen, Linda

Biography

Linda Oppen, daughter of Objectivist poet George Oppen and his wife Mary, was born 7 May 1940 in Brooklyn, New York. For the next six years the Oppen family lived on Long Island and in Detroit, eventually settling in Redondo Beach, California, where they lived for four years. From Autumn 1950 to Spring 1958 Linda attended the American School in Mexico City. She then entered Sarah Lawrence College, N.Y., in Autumn 1958, and graduated with a BA. in Spring 1962.

On June 12, 1962 Linda married Alex Mourelatos, then a graduate student in philosophy at Yale. In Autumn 1962 she entered the Yale Medical School. She discontinued her studies in 1964 while on a leave of absence with Alex, who was then a Post-doctoral Fellow at The University of Wisconsin at Madison's Institute for Research in the Humanities.

From 1965 to the present Linda and Alex Mourelatos have travelled extensively, in conjunction with Alex's teaching career, including lengthy stays in West Germany; Washington, D.C.; Princeton, N.J.; Canberra, Australia; and Cambridge, Britain. Their permanent residence during this period has been Austin, Texas, where Alex teaches in the Philosophy Department of The University of Texas, and where Linda Oppen has been active in equestrian training and showing.