bell hooks

Born in Hopkinsville, a small, segregated town in Kentucky to a working-class family, Watkins was one of six children of Rosa Bell (née Oldham) and Veodis Watkins. Her father was a custodian and her mother was a homemaker.[5] An avid reader, Watkins was educated 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 later graduated from Hopkinsville High School in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. She obtained her BA in English from Stanford University in 1973, and her MA in English from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1976.[6]

In 1983, after several years of teaching and writing, she completed her doctorate in literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz, with a dissertation on author Toni Morrison.

Her teaching career began in 1976 as an English professor and senior lecturer in Ethnic Studies at the University of Southern California.[7] During her three years there, Golemics, a Los Angeles publisher, released her first published work, a chapbook of poems titled And There We Wept (1978), written under the name "bell hooks". She adopted her maternal great-grandmother's name as a pen name because her great-grandmother "was known for her snappy and bold tongue, which [she] greatly admired". She put the name in lowercase letters "to distinguish [herself from] her great-grandmother." She said that her unconventional lowercasing of her name signifies what is most important is her works: the "substance of books, not who I am."[8]

She taught at several post-secondary institutions in the early 1980s and 1990s, including the University of California, Santa Cruz, San Francisco State University, Yale, Oberlin College and City College of New York.[9] In 1981 South End Press published her first major work, Ain't I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism, though it was written years earlier while she was an undergraduate student.[10] In the decades since its publication, Ain't I a Woman? has gained widespread recognition as an influential contribution to feminist thought.[11]

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 idea of a white-supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy, the marginalization of black women, and the disregard for issues of race and class within feminism. 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 in numerous scholarly and mainstream magazines, lectures at widely accessible venues, and appears in various documentaries.

bell hooks in 2009

She is frequently cited by feminists[12][13][14] as having provided the best solution to the difficulty of defining something as diverse as "feminism", addressing the problem that if feminism can mean everything, it means nothing. She asserts an answer to the question "what is feminism?" that she says is "rooted in neither fear nor fantasy... 'Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation and oppression'".[15]

She has published more than 30 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 inequalities. In three conventional books and four children's books, she suggests that communication and literacy (the ability to read, write, and think critically) are crucial to developing healthy communities and relationships that are not marred by race, class, or gender inequalities.

She has held positions as Professor of African-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.

In 2002, hooks gave a commencement speech at Southwestern University. Eschewing the congratulatory mode of traditional commencement speeches, she spoke against what she saw as government-sanctioned violence and oppression, and admonished students who she believed went along with such practices. This was followed by a controversy described in the Austin Chronicle after an "irate Arizonian"[16] had criticized the speech in a letter to the editor.[17] The newspaper reported that many in the audience booed the speech, though "several graduates passed over the provost to shake her hand or give her a hug".[16]

In 2004, she joined Berea College in Berea, Kentucky, as Distinguished Professor in Residence,[18] 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". Her 2008 book, belonging: a culture of place, includes a candid interview with author Wendell Berry as well as a discussion of her move back to Kentucky.[19] She has undertaken three scholar-in-residences at The New School. Mostly recently she did one for a week in October 2014. She engaged in public dialogues with Gloria Steinem,[20] Laverne Cox,[21] and Cornel West.

In her book Reel to Real, hooks discusses the effect that movies have on any given individual, with specific emphasis on the black female spectator. She argues that, although we know that movies are not real life, "no matter how sophisticated our strategies of critique and intervention, [we] are usually seduced, at least for a time, by the images we see on the screen. They have power over us, and we have no power over them."[36]

She focuses on problematic racial representations. She has written a number of essays and articles, and in Reel to Real she describes her experiences growing up watching mainstream movies as well as engaging in the media. Her belief is that to engage in film is to engage in the negation of black female representation in the media.[36] She states, "Representation is the 'hot' issue right now because it's a major realm of power for any system of domination. We keep coming back to the question of representation because identity is always about representation".[36]

In her book Black Looks: Race and Representation, in the chapter "The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators", hooks discusses what she calls an "oppositional gaze". She discusses it as a position and strategy for black people, especially black women, to develop a critical spectatorship in relation to mass media. Describing how for her, the "gaze" had always been political, hooks explains how she began to grow curious of the results of black slaves being punished for looking at their white owners. She wondered how much had been absorbed and carried on through the generations to affect not only black parenting, but black spectatorship as well.[37] hooks writes that because she remembered how she had dared to look at adults as a child, even though she was forbidden, she knew that slaves had looked too.[38] Drawing on Foucault's thoughts about power always coexisting with the possibility of resistance, hooks discusses this looking as a form of resistance, as a way of finding agency, and declaring: "Not only will I stare. I want my look to change reality."[39]

She writes that when black people started watching films and television in the United States, they knew that mass media was part of the system that was maintaining white supremacy. Because of this, watching television became a space for black people to develop a critical spectatorship; an oppositional gaze. Prior to racial integration, black viewers "[...] experienced visual pleasure in a context where looking was also about contestation and confrontation."[40] She further discusses how this spectatorship looked different for black women compared to black men. Black men could renounce the racism of the images, while simultaneously engaging in the phallocentric nature of Hollywood films as a way of contesting white supremacy and experiencing imaginative phallocentric power. Participating in the phallocentric gaze, and objectifying the white female who was cast as the desired object, black men could rebel against the racist reality where black men was constantly interpreted as looking at white womanhood and punished for it.[41]

For black women, however, the spectatorship looked different. Since bodies of black females were mostly absent in early films, the development of black women's spectatorship was complicated.[41] If black females were present, their bodies were there to: "[...] enhance and maintain white womanhood as object of the phallocentric gaze."[42] According to hooks, the conventional representations of black females have been an assault to black womanhood. In response to this, many black women rejected looking at the images altogether.[43] Another response of some black women, were to turn off their criticism and identify with the white woman on the screen, through this victimization being able to experience cinematic pleasure.[44] A third option, is to look through the lens of the oppositional gaze. This is a critical gaze that, according to hooks, goes beyond Laura Mulvey's analysis of how the Hollywood film constructs the man as the subject, and the woman as the object.[45] This "woman" is in fact, a white woman. She criticizes mainstream feminist film theory for ignoring the subject of race, and by that also ignoring the role of black female spectatorship.[46]

She asserts that there is a pleasure to be found in the oppositional gaze, in looking against the grain.[47] However, some black females are unable to resist dominant ways of looking, because their perception of reality is still colonized.[48] She discusses that the amount of feelings of dehumanization and objectification that a black woman experiences in this society is determinant for her looking relations. The more she is able to construct herself as a subject in daily life, the more inclined she is to develop an oppositional gaze. And this is in turn affected by the realm of representation in mass media.[49] This is one of the reasons why hooks stresses the importance of black female film makers, mentioning Julie Dash, Camille Billops, Kathleen Collins, Ayoka Chenzira and Zeinabu Davis. This sector of filmmaking and spectatorship is creating new ways of recognition, identification and subjectification.[50]

• And there we wept: poems. 1978. OCLC 6230231.
• hooks, bell (1981). Ain't I a Woman?: Black women and feminism. ISBN 978-0-89608-129-1.
• hooks, bell (1984). Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. ISBN 978-0-89608-613-5.

Throughout the book the author explores various manifestations of her central contentions that early feminist theory and practice was limited in scope, and that true feminist movement has the potential vastly to improve the lives of men and women alike.

• hooks, bell (1989). Talking Back: Thinking feminist, thinking Black. ISBN 978-0-921284-09-3.
• hooks, bell (1990). Yearning: race, gender, and cultural politics. ISBN 978-0-921284-35-2.
• With Cornel West, hooks, bell; West, Cornel (1991). Breaking bread: insurgent Black intellectual life. ISBN 978-0-89608-414-8.
• Black Looks: Race and representation. 1992. ISBN 978-0-89608-434-6.
• hooks, bell (1993). Sisters of the yam: Black women and self-recovery. ISBN 978-1138821682.
• Teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom. 1994. ISBN 978-0-415-90808-5.
• hooks, bell (1994). Outlaw culture: resisting representations. ISBN 978-0-415-90811-5.
• hooks, bell (1995). Killing rage: ending racism. ISBN 978-0-8050-5027-1.
• hooks, bell (1995). Art on my mind: visual politics. ISBN 978-1-56584-263-2.
• Reel to real: race, sex, and class at the movies. 1996. ISBN 978-0-415-91824-4.
• hooks, bell (1996). Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood. ISBN 978-0-8050-4146-0.
• hooks, bell (1997). Wounds of passion: a writing life. ISBN 978-0-8050-5722-5.
• hooks, bell (1999). Remembered rapture: the writer at work. ISBN 978-0-8050-5910-6.
• hooks, bell (2000). Justice: childhood love lessons. ISBN 978-0-688-16844-5.
• hooks, bell (2000). All About Love: New Visions. ISBN 978-0-06-095947-0.
• Feminism is for everybody: passionate politics. 2000. ISBN 978-0-89608-628-9.
• hooks, bell (2000). Where we stand: class matters (PDF). ISBN 978-0-415-92913-4.
• hooks, bell (2001). Salvation: Black people and love. ISBN 978-0-06-095949-4.
• hooks, bell (2002). Communion: the female search for love. ISBN 978-0-06-093829-1.
• Teaching community: a pedagogy of hope. New York: Routledge. 2003. ISBN 978-0-415-96818-8.
• Rock my soul: Black people and self-esteem. New York: Atria Books. 2003. ISBN 978-0-7434-5605-0.
• The will to change: men, masculinity, and love. New York: Atria Books. 2004. ISBN 978-0-7434-5607-4.
• Space. 2004.[51]
• We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity. New York: Routledge. 2004. ISBN 978-0-203-64220-7.
• Soul sister: women, friendship, and fulfillment. Cambridge, Massachusetts: South End Press. 2005. ISBN 978-0-89608-735-4.
• Witness. 2006.[51]
• With Amalia Mesa-Bains, Homegrown: engaged cultural criticism. Cambridge, Massachusetts: South End Press. 2006. ISBN 978-0-89608-759-0.
• Belonging: a culture of place. New York: Routledge. 2009. ISBN 978-0-203-88801-8.
• Teaching critical thinking: practical wisdom. New York: Routledge. 2010. ISBN 978-0-415-96820-1.
• Appalachian elegy: poetry and place. Kentucky Voices Series. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. 2012. ISBN 978-0-8131-3669-1.
• Writing beyond race: living theory and practice. New York: Routledge. 2013. ISBN 978-0-415-53914-2.

• Happy to be nappy. Chris Raschka (illustrator). 1999. ISBN 978-0-7868-2377-2.CS1 maint: others (link)
• Homemade Love. New York: Hyperion Books for Children. 2002. ISBN 9780786825530.
• Be boy buzz. New York: Hyperion Books for Children. 2002. ISBN 9780786816439.
• Skin again. Chris Raschka (illustrator). New York: Hyperion Books for Children. 2004. ISBN 9780786808250.CS1 maint: others (link)
• Grump groan growl. Chris Raschka (illustrator). New York: Hyperion Books for Children. 2008. ISBN 9780786808168.CS1 maint: others (link)

• hooks, bell (1993), "Black women and feminism", in Richardson, Laurel; Taylor, Verta A. (eds.), Feminist frontiers III, New York: McGraw-Hill, pp. 444–449, ISBN 9780075570011.
• hooks, bell (1996), "Continued devaluation of Black womanhood", in Jackson, Stevi; Scott, Sue (eds.), Feminism and sexuality: a reader, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 216–223, ISBN 9780231107082.
• hooks, bell (1997), "Sisterhood: political solidarity between women", in McClintock, Anne; Mufti, Aamir; Shohat, Ella (eds.), Dangerous liaisons: gender, nation, and postcolonial perspectives, Minnesota, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 396–414, ISBN 9780816626496.
• hooks, bell (2004), "Selling hot pussy: representations of Black female sexuality in the cultural marketplace", in Richardson, Laurel; Taylor, Verta A.; Whittier, Nancy (eds.), Feminist frontiers (5th ed.), Boston: McGraw-Hill, pp. 119–127, ISBN 9780072824230. Pdf.
• hooks, bell (2005), "Black women: shaping feminist theory", in Cudd, Ann E.; Andreasen, Robin O. (eds.), Feminist theory: a philosophical anthology, Oxford, UK; Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 60–68, ISBN 9781405116619.