This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can.

Gloria Jean Watkins (born on September 25, 1952), better known as bell hooks, is an African-American intellectual, feminist, and social activist. Her writing has focused on the interconnectivity of race, class, and gender and their ability to produce and perpetuate systems of oppression and domination. She has published over thirty books and numerous scholarly and mainstream articles, appeared in several documentary films and participated in various public lectures. Primarily through a postmodern female perspective, she has addressed race, class, and gender in education, art, history, sexuality, mass media and feminism. Image File history File links Broom_icon. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... is the 268th day of the year (269th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1952 (MCMLII) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... An intellectual is one who tries to use his or her intellect to work, study, reflect, speculate on, or ask and answer questions with regard to a variety of different ideas. ... Feminists redirects here. ... Social activists are people who act as the conscience and voice of many individuals within a society. ... is the 268th day of the year (269th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1952 (MCMLII) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Motto: (Out Of Many, One) (traditional) In God We Trust (1956 to date) Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington D.C. Largest city New York City None at federal level (English de facto) Government Federal constitutional republic  - President George Walker Bush (R)  - Vice President Dick Cheney (R) Independence from... An intellectual is one who tries to use his or her intellect to work, study, reflect, speculate on, or ask and answer questions with regard to a variety of different ideas. ... Feminists redirects here. ... Social activists are people who act as the conscience and voice of many individuals within a society. ... For other uses, see Race (disambiguation). ... Social class refers to the hierarchical distinctions between individuals or groups in societies or cultures. ... Gender in common usage refers to the sexual distinction between male and female. ... Postmodernity (also called post-modernity or the postmodern condition) is a term used by philosophers, social scientists, art critics and social critics to refer to aspects of contemporary art, culture, economics and social conditions that are the result of the unique features of late 20th century and early 21st century... It has been suggested that Mass wire media be merged into this article or section. ...

Biography

Early life

hooks was born on September 26, 1952 in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. She grew up in a working class family with five sisters and one brother. Her father, Veodis Watkins, was a custodian and her mother, Rosa Bell Watkins, was a homemaker. Throughout her childhood, she was an avid reader. is the 269th day of the year (270th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1952 (MCMLII) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Hopkinsville is a city located in Christian County, Kentucky. ... Official language(s) English[1] Capital Frankfort Largest city Louisville Area  Ranked 37th  - Total 40,444 sq mi (104,749 km²)  - Width 140 miles (225 km)  - Length 379 miles (610 km)  - % water 1. ... The term working class is used to denote a social class. ...

hooks's early education took place in racially segregated public schools, and wrote of great adversities when making the transition to an integrated school, where teachers and students were predominantly white. She graduated from Crispus Attucks High School in Hopkinsville, earned her B.A. in English from Stanford University in 1973 and her M.A. in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1976. In 1983, after several years of teaching and writing, she completed her doctorate in the literature department from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a dissertation on author Toni Morrison. The Rex Theatre for Colored People Racial segregation is characterised by separation of different races in daily life, such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a rest room, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home[1]. Segregation... The term public school has two contrary meanings: In England, one of a small number of prestigious historic schools open to the public which normally charge fees and are financed by bodies other than the state, commonly as private charitable trusts; here the word public is used much as in... Children at a parade in North College Hill, Ohio Racial integration, or simply integration includes desegregation (the process of ending systematic racial segregation). ... Crispus Attucks (circa 1723 - March 5, 1770), was a political leader during the Boston Massacre. ... Hopkinsville is a city located in Christian County, Kentucky. ... A Bachelor of Arts (B.A. or A.B.) is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for a course or program in the arts and/or sciences. ... “Stanford” redirects here. ... A Master of Arts is a postgraduate academic masters degree awarded by universities in North America and the United Kingdom (excluding the ancient universities of Scotland and Oxbridge. ... “University of Wisconsin” redirects here. ... “UCSC” redirects here. ... This article is about the thesis in dialectics and academia. ... For the Louisiana politician, see deLesseps Morrison, Jr. ...

Career

hooks began her teaching career in 1976 as an English professor and senior lecturer in Ethnic Studies at the University of Southern California. During her three years there, Golemics (Los Angeles) released her first published work, a chapbook of poems titled "And There We Wept" (1978), written under her pen name, "bell hooks". She adopted the name from those of her mother and grandmother. According to her, the name's unconventional lowercasing signifies what is most important in her works: the "substance of books, not who I am."^[1] The Trojan Shrine, better known as Tommy Trojan located in the center of University of Southern California campus. ... A modern day chapbook. ...

hooks taught at several post-secondary institutions in the early 80s, including the University of California, Santa Cruz and San Francisco State University. South End Press (Boston) published her first major work, Ain’t I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism in 1981, written while she was an undergraduate student. In the decades since its publication, "Ain't I a Woman?" has gained widespread recognition as an influential contribution to postmodern feminist thought.^[2] “UCSC” redirects here. ... San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State, State and SFSU) is a public university located in the southwestern San Francisco, California, bordering Lake Merced and Lowell High School, near Fort Funston and Daly City, near the San Mateo County line. ... Aint I a Woman?: Black women and feminism is a 1981 book by bell hooks, ISBN 089608129X. Hooks examines the effect of racism and sexism on black women, the civil rights movement, and feminist movements from suffrage to the seventies. ...

Ain’t I a Woman? examines several recurring themes in her later work: the historical impact of sexism and racism on black women, devaluation of black womanhood; media roles and portrayal, the education system, the "white supremacist patriarchal capitalist" system in the marginalization of black women; and the disregard for issues of race and class within feminism. A patriarch (from Greek: patria means father; arché means rule, beginning, origin) is a male head of an extended family exercising autocratic authority, or, by extension, a member of the ruling class or government of a society controlled by senior men. ... In economics, a capitalist is someone who owns capital, presumably within the economic system of capitalism. ...

Since the publication of Ain’t I a Woman?, she has become eminent as a leftist and postmodern political thinker and cultural critic. She targets and appeals to a broad audience by presenting her work in a variety of media using various writing and speaking styles. As well as having written books, she has published numerous scholarly and mainstream magazines, lectures at widely accessible venues, and appears in various documentaries. In politics, left-wing, political left, leftism, or simply the left, are terms which refer (with no particular precision) to the segment of the political spectrum typically associated with any of several strains of socialism, social democracy, or liberalism (especially in the American sense of the word), or with opposition... Postmodernity (also called post-modernity or the postmodern condition) is a term used by philosophers, social scientists, art critics and social critics to refer to aspects of contemporary art, culture, economics and social conditions that are the result of the unique features of late 20th century and early 21st century... Politics is the process by which decisions are made within groups. ... A cultural critic is a critic of a given culture, usually as a whole and typically on a radical basis. ...

hooks has published over thirty books, ranging in topics from black men, patriarchy and masculinity to self-help, engaged pedagogy to personal memoirs, and sexuality (in regards to feminism and politics of aesthetic/visual culture. A prevalent theme in her most recent writing is the community and communion, the ability of loving communities to overcome race, class, and gender. In three conventional books and four children's books, she demonstrates that communication and literacy (the ability to read, write, and think critically) are the quintessential to developing healthy communities and relationships that are not marred by race, class, or gender inequalities. Pedagogy (IPA: ) , the art or science of being a teacher, generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction[1]. The word comes from the Ancient Greek (paidagōgeō; from (child) and (lead)): literally, to lead the child”. In Ancient Greece, was (usually) a slave who supervised the... A memoir, as a literary genre, forms a sub-class of autobiography. ...

Hooks has held positions as Professor of African and Afro-American Studies and English at Yale University, Associate Professor of Women’s Studies and American Literature at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, and as Distinguished Lecturer of English Literature at the City College of New York. “Yale” redirects here. ... Oberlin College is a small liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, in the United States. ... Oberlin is a city in Lorain County, Ohio, to the south and west of Cleveland. ... Official language(s) None Capital Columbus Largest city Columbus Largest metro area Cleveland Area  Ranked 34th  - Total 44,825 sq mi (116,096 km²)  - Width 220 miles (355 km)  - Length 220 miles (355 km)  - % water 8. ... The City College of The City University of New York (known more commonly as City College of New York or simply City College, CCNY, or colloquially as City) is a senior college of the City University of New York, in New York City. ...

Hooks gave a controversial commencement speech in 2002 at Southwestern University. Eschewing the congratulatory mode of traditional commencement speeches, she spoke of government-sanctioned violence and oppression, and admonished students who went with the flow. The speech was booed by many in the audience, though "several graduates passed over the provost to shake hooks's hand or give her a hug."^[3] Many parents of graduates have refused to donate money to the university since that time, and President Jake Schrum's refusal to address the issue has alienated many former supporters of the university.^{[citation needed]} Southwestern University is a private, four-year, undergraduate, liberal arts college located in Georgetown, Texas, USA. Founded in 1840, Southwestern is the oldest university in Texas. ...

In 2004 she joined forces with Berea College in Berea, Kentucky as Distinguished Professor in Residence,^[4] where she participated in a weekly feminist discussion group, "Monday Night Feminism", a luncheon lecture series, "Peanut Butter and Gender" and a seminar, "Building Beloved Community: The Practice of Impartial Love". Berea College is a small liberal arts work college in Berea, Kentucky, south of Lexington, Kentucky with a full-time enrollment of 1514 students. ... Categories: Stub | Districts of Lesotho ... Official language(s) English[1] Capital Frankfort Largest city Louisville Area  Ranked 37th  - Total 40,444 sq mi (104,749 km²)  - Width 140 miles (225 km)  - Length 379 miles (610 km)  - % water 1. ...

Influences

Hooks's influences include abolitionist and feminist Sojourner Truth (whose speech Ain't I a Woman? inspired Hooks's first major work), Brazilian educator Paulo Freire (whose perspectives on education Hooks embraces in her theory of engaged pedagogy), theologian Gustavo Gutierrez, psychologist, Erich Fromm, playwright Lorraine Hansberry, Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, writer James Baldwin, black nationalist leader Malcolm X, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr (who addressess how the strength of love unites communities).^{[5] [6]} This article is about the abolition of slavery. ... Sojourner Truth (c. ... Paulo Freire Paulo Freire (Recife, Brazil September 19, 1921 - São Paulo, Brazil May 2, 1997) was a Brazilian educator and influential theorist of education. ... Theology is literally rational discourse concerning God (Greek θεος, theos, God, + λογος, logos, rational discourse). By extension, it also refers to the study of other religious topics. ... Gustavo Gutiérrez is one of the founders of liberation theology. ... Lorraine Hansberry (May 19, 1930 - January 12, 1965) was an American playwright and litigant in the United States Supreme Court case, Hansberry v. ... A replica of an ancient statue found among the ruins of a temple at Sarnath Buddhism is a philosophy based on the teachings of the Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama, a prince of the Shakyas, whose lifetime is traditionally given as 566 to 486 BCE. It had subsequently been accepted by... St. ... Thich Nhat Hanh Thích Nhất Hạnh (born 1926) is an expatriate Vietnamese Buddhist monk, peace activist, and prolific author in English. ... James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – November 30, 1987) was an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, poet, and essayist, best known for his novel Go Tell It on the Mountain. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Malcolm X, born Malcolm Little, also known as Detroit Red and Al-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Omaha, Nebraska, May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965 in New York City) was a Muslim Minister and National Spokesman for the Nation of Islam. ... Historically, the civil rights movement was a period of time around the world of approximately one generation (1954–1980) wherein there was much worldwide civil unrest and popular rebellion. ... Martin Luther King Jr. ...

Criticism

Some writers have criticized Hooks. David Horowitz made light of her statement that "it is difficult not to hear in standard English always the sound of slaughter and conquest" (Teaching to Transgress, p.169).^[7] Peter Schweizer accused her of hypocrisy in sexual politics,^[8] and Jamie Glazov accused her of "gutter hate diatribes."^[9] David Horowitz is an American conservative writer and activist. ... Peter Schweizer is a conservative author and a research fellow at the Hoover Institute. ... Jamie Glazov (born 1966, in Moscow, Russia) is the managing editor of Frontpage Magazine[1], the online publication founded by David Horowitz. ...

One passage Horowitz and Glazov specifically object to is a discussion in the first chapter of Killing Rage, in which Hooks states that she is "sitting beside an anonymous white male that [she] long[s] to murder".^[10] She explains that her impulse was occasioned by a ticket/boarding pass dispute involving her black and female friend. To Hooks, the dispute was symbolic of the role of racism and sexism in American society. The incident in question was a seating dispute on-board an airliner. Hooks and her companion had used vouchers to upgrade from coach to first class, however Hooks' companion had received an incorrect boarding pass and was assigned to coach instead. She took the seat next to Hooks anyway, and when the man holding the correct boarding pass for that seat arrived, he found Hooks' companion in it and asked her to move. She would not, so he asked a stewardess to get her to move, which she eventually did. "I stare him down with rage, tell him that I do not want to hear his liberal apologies, his repeated insistence that "it was not his fault." I am shouting at him that it is not question of blame, that the mistake was understandable, but that the way K was treated was completely unacceptable, that it reflected both racism and sexism." Hooks then wrote the opening chapter of the book while sitting next to him.

It was not a question of your giving up the seat, it was an occasion for you to intervene in the harassment of a young black woman and you chose your own comfort and tried to deflect away from your complicity in that choice by offering an insincere, face saving apology... It was this sequences of racialized incidents involving black women that intensified my rage against the white man sitting next to me. I felt a 'Killing Rage.' I wanted to stab him softly, to shoot him with the gun I wished I had in my purse. And as I watched his pain, I would say to him tenderly 'racism hurts.'^[11]

Awards and nominations

• Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics: The American Book Awards/ Before Columbus Foundation Award (1991)
• Ain’t I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism: “One of the twenty most influential women’s books in the last 20 years” by Publishers Weekly (1992)
• bell hooks: The Writer’s Award from the Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Fund (1994)
• Happy to Be Nappy: NAACP Image Award nominee (2001)
• Homemade Love: The Bank Street College Children's Book of the Year (2002)
• Salvation: Black People and Love: Hurston Wright Legacy Award nominee (2002)
• bell hooks: Utne Reader's “100 Visionaries Who Could Change Your Life”
• bell hooks: The Atlantic Monthly's “One of our nation’s leading public intellectuals”

Select bibliography

• Ain’t I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism (1981) ISBN 0-89608-129-X
• Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (1984) ISBN 0-89608-614-3
• Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black (1989) ISBN 0-921284-09-8
• Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics (1990) ISBN 0-921284-34-9
• Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life (1991) (with Cornel West) ISBN 0-89608-414-0
• Black Looks: Race and Representation (1992) ISBN 0-89608-433-7
• Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-recovery (1993) ISBN 1-896357-99-7
• Teaching to Transgress: Education As the Practice of Freedom (1994)ISBN 0-415-90808-6
• Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations (1994) ISBN 0-415-90811-6
• Art on My Mind: Visual Politics (1995) ISBN 1-56584-263-4
• Killing Rage: Ending Racism (1995) ISBN 0-8050-5027-2
• Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood (1996) ISBN 0-8050-5512-6
• Reel to Real: Race, Sex, and Class at the Movies (1996)
• Wounds of Passion: A Writing Life (1997) ISBN 0-8050-5722-6
• Happy to be Nappy (1999) ISBN 0-7868-0427-0
• Remembered Rapture: The Writer at Work (1999) ISBN 0-8050-5910-5
• All About Love: New Visions (2000) ISBN 0-06-095947-9
• Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics (2000) ISBN 0-89608-629-1
• Where We Stand: Class Matters (2000)
• Salvation: Black People and Love (2001) ISBN 0-06-095949-5
• Communion: The Female Search for Love (2002) ISBN 0-06-093829-3
• Homemade Love (2002) ISBN 0-7868-0643-5
• Be Boy Buzz (2002) ISBN 0-7868-0814-4
• Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-esteem (2003) ISBN 0-7434-5605-X
• The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love (2003) ISBN 0-7434-5607-6
• Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope (2003) ISBN 0-415-96817-8
• We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity(2004) ISBN 0-415-96926-3
• Skin Again (2004) ISBN 0-7868-0825-X
• Space (2004) ISBN 0-415-96816-X
• Soul Sister: Women, Friendship, and Fulfillment (2005) ISBN 0-89608-735-2
• Witness (2006) ISBN 0-89608-759-X

Aint I a Woman?: Black women and feminism is a 1981 book by bell hooks, ISBN 089608129X. Hooks examines the effect of racism and sexism on black women, the civil rights movement, and feminist movements from suffrage to the seventies. ... Cornel Ronald West (born June 2, 1953 in Tulsa, Oklahoma) is a prominent African-American scholar and public intellectual. ...

Film appearances

• Black Is, Black Ain't (1994)
• Give a Damn Again (1995)
• Cultural Criticism and Transformation (1997)
• My Feminism (1997)
• I am a Man: Black masculinity in America (2004)
• Voices of Power (1999)
• Baadasssss Cinema (2002)
• Writing About a Revolution: A talk (2004)
• Happy to Be Nappy and other stories of me (2004)
• Is Feminism Dead? (2004)

BaadAsssss Cinema is a 2002 documentary film, directed by Issac Julien. ...

References

Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 253rd day of the year (254th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Google Scholar Logo Google Scholar (GS) is a freely-accessible web search engine that indexes the full-text of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. ...

Further reading

• Florence, Namulundah. bell hooks's Engaged Pedagogy. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, 1998. ISBN 0-89789-564-9
• Leitch et al, eds. “bell hooks.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001. 2475-2484. ISBN 0-393-97429-4
• South End Press Collective, eds. “Critical Consciousness for Political Resistance”Talking About a Revolution.Cambridge: South End Press, 1998. 39-52. ISBN 0-89608-587-2
• Stanley, Sandra Kumamoto, ed. Other Sisterhoods: Literary Theory and U.S. Women of Color. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1998. ISBN 0-252-02361-7
• Wallace, Michelle. Black Popular Culture. New York: The New Press, 1998. ISBN 1-56584-459-9

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Bell hooks

• all about bell link to biography, interviews, articles, and book information
• bell hooks and the Politics of Hate Criticism of hooks
• Crossing Boundaries, Reaching Out: The Public Scholarship of bell hooks link to article by Alice Marwick
• Ejournal website link to several critical resources for bell hooks
• Real Change News link to hooks's interview with Rosette Royale
• Shambhala Sun link to hooks's articles published in Shambhala Sun Magazine
• South End Press link to hooks's books published by South End Press
• University of California, Santa Barbara link to a biographical sketch of hooks
• University of Pennsylvania hooks's article “Postmodern Blackness”
• Whole Terrain link to hooks's articles published in Whole Terrain
• Z Magazine - Challenging Capitalism & Patriarchy: Third World Viewpoint interviews bell hooks