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Bell hooks
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==Teaching and writing== She began her academic career in 1976 as an English professor and senior lecturer in [[ethnic studies]] at the [[University of Southern California]].<ref name="hampton2007">{{Cite book|editor-last1=Anderson|editor-first1=Gary L.|editor-last2=Herr|editor-first2=Kathryn G.|last=Hampton|first=Bonita|chapter=hooks, bell (1952β)|date=2007|title=Encyclopedia of Activism and Social Justice|publisher=[[SAGE Publishing]]|doi=10.4135/9781412956215.n418|isbn=978-1-4129-1812-1|volume=2|pages=[[iarchive:encyclopediaofac0002unse/page/704/mode/1up|704β706]]}}</ref> 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),<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-10-12 |title=bell hooks; public intellectual, feminist theorist, and cultural critic |url=https://www.documentwomen.com/bell-hooks-public-intellectual-feminist-theorist-and-cultural-critic |access-date=2024-11-26 |website=documentwomen.com |language=en}}</ref><ref name="glikin1989">{{Cite book|last=Glikin|first=Ronda|title=Black American Women in Literature: A Bibliography, 1976 through 1987|year=1989|isbn=0-89950-372-1|publisher=[[McFarland & Company]]|oclc=18986103|page=[[iarchive:blackamericanwom0000glik/page/73/mode/1up|73]]}}</ref> written under the name "bell hooks". She had adopted her maternal great-grandmother's name as her pen name because, as she later put it, her great-grandmother "was known for her snappy and bold tongue, which [she] greatly admired".<ref name="Inspired Eccentricity, Talking Back"/> She also said she put the name in lowercase letters to convey that what is most important to focus upon is her works, not her personal qualities: the "substance of books, not who [she is]".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://issuu.com/thesandspur/docs/112-17 |title=Bell Hooks Speaks Up |first=Heather|last= Williams |work=The Sandspur |volume=112 |issue=17 |date=March 26, 2013 |via=Issuu |access-date=November 10, 2019 |archive-date=February 28, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210228041718/https://issuu.com/thesandspur/docs/112-17 |url-status=live |page=1}}</ref> On the unconventional lowercasing of her pen name, hooks added that, "When the feminist movement was at its zenith in the late '60s and early '70s, there was a lot of moving away from the idea of the person. It was: Let's talk about the ideas behind the work, and the people matter less... It was kind of a gimmicky thing, but lots of feminist women were doing it."<ref>{{Cite web|date=February 14, 2018|title=How Do You Practice Intersectionalism? An Interview with Bell Hooks|first=Randy |last=Lowens|url=https://blackrosefed.org/intersectionalism-bell-hooks-interview/|access-date=December 17, 2021|website=Black Rose/Rosa Negra Anarchist Federation|language=en-US|archive-date=December 15, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211215200516/https://blackrosefed.org/intersectionalism-bell-hooks-interview/|url-status=live}}</ref> In the early 1980s and 1990s, hooks taught at several post-secondary institutions, including the University of California, Santa Cruz, [[San Francisco State University]], [[Yale]] (1985 to 1988, as assistant professor of African and Afro-American studies and English),<ref name="Lee-2019">{{Cite news|last=Lee|first=Min Jin|date=February 28, 2019|title=In Praise of Bell Hooks|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/books/bell-hooks-min-jin-lee-aint-i-a-woman.html|access-date=December 15, 2021|issn=0362-4331|archive-date=December 15, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211215170027/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/books/bell-hooks-min-jin-lee-aint-i-a-woman.html|url-status=live}}</ref> [[Oberlin College]] (1988 to 1994, as associate professor of American literature and women's studies), and, beginning in 1994, as distinguished professor of English at [[City College of New York]].<ref>{{Cite web|last=Leatherman|first=Courtney|date=May 19, 1995|title=The Real Bell Hooks|url=https://www.chronicle.com/article/gloria-watkins-the-real-bell-hooks/|url-status=live|access-date=December 16, 2021|website=The Chronicle of Higher Education|archive-date=December 16, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211216061035/https://www.chronicle.com/article/gloria-watkins-the-real-bell-hooks/}}</ref><ref name="gale">"Bell Hooks". Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2010. Literature Resource Center. Retrieved June 12, 2018.</ref> [[South End Press]] published her first major work, ''Ain't I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism'', in 1981, though she had started writing it years earlier at the age of 19, while still an undergraduate.<ref name="leblanc1997">{{Cite book|editor-last=Bigelow|editor-first=Barbara Carlisle|last=Le Blanc|first=Ondine E.|chapter=Bell Hooks 1952β|title=Contemporary Black Biography|volume=5|year=1997|publisher=[[Gale (publisher)|Gale]]|isbn=978-1-4144-3543-5|oclc=527366247|pages=[[iarchive:contemporaryblac0005unse/page/125/mode/1up|125β129]]|issn=1058-1316}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-09-21 |title=Bell hooks {{!}} Biography, Books, & Facts {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/bell-hooks |access-date=2024-10-15 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref> In the decades since its publication, ''Ain't I a Woman?'' has been recognized for its contribution to feminist thought, with ''[[Publishers Weekly]]'' in 1992 naming it "one of the twenty most influential women's books in the last 20 years".<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Smith|first1=Gerald L.|last2=McDaniel|first2=Karen Cotton|last3=Hardin|first3=John A.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MPiACgAAQBAJ&pg=PT620|title=The Kentucky African American Encyclopedia|date=August 28, 2015|publisher=University Press of Kentucky|isbn=978-0-8131-6067-2|language=en|access-date=December 16, 2021|archive-date=December 16, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211216061039/https://books.google.com/books?id=MPiACgAAQBAJ&pg=PT620|url-status=live}}</ref> Writing in ''[[The New York Times]]'' in 2019, [[Min Jin Lee]] said that ''Ain't I a Woman'' "remains a radical and relevant work of political theory. She lays the groundwork of her feminist theory by giving historical evidence of the specific sexism that black female slaves endured and how that legacy affects black womanhood today."<ref name="Lee-2019"/> ''Ain't I a Woman?'' examines themes including the historical impact of sexism and racism on black women, devaluation of black womanhood,<ref>{{Cite journal|author-link1=Beverly Guy-Sheftall|last1=Guy-Sheftall|first1=Beverly|last2=Ikerionwu|first2=Maria K. Mootry|last3=hooks|first3=bell|date=1983|title=Black Women and Feminism: Two Reviews|journal=[[Phylon]]|volume=44|issue=1|pages=84|doi=10.2307/274371|jstor=274371}}</ref> media roles and portrayal, the education system, the idea of a [[White supremacy|white-supremacist]]-[[capitalist]]-[[patriarchy]] and the [[marginalization]] of black women.<ref name="wakemalpas2913">{{Cite book|title=The Routledge Companion to Critical and Cultural Theory|date=June 19, 2013|publisher=[[Routledge]]|isbn=978-1-134-12327-8|editor-last=Wake|editor-first=Paul|pages=241β242|doi=10.4324/9780203520796|url=http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/13362/1/Daly_Glyn_ROU_2013_Marxism.pdf|editor-last2=Malpas|editor-first2=Simon|access-date=December 16, 2021|archive-date=April 14, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414012538/http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/13362/1/Daly_Glyn_ROU_2013_Marxism.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> [[File:bellhooks.jpg|thumb|bell hooks in 2009]] At the same time, hooks became significant as a [[leftist]] and [[Postmodern philosophy|postmodern]] political thinker and [[cultural critic]].<ref>{{Cite web|date=January 1, 1995|title=Bell Hooks|url=https://www.utne.com/arts/bell-hooks-postmodernism-racism-sexism/|url-status=live|access-date=December 16, 2021|website=Utne|language=en-US|archive-date=December 16, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211216061036/https://www.utne.com/arts/bell-hooks-postmodernism-racism-sexism/}}</ref> She published more than 30 books,<ref name="Guardian obit"/> ranging in topics from black men, patriarchy, and [[masculinity]] to self-help; engaged [[pedagogy]]<ref>{{Cite web |last=Owens |first=Keith A |date=2001-02-21 |title=bell hooks' tough love |url=https://www.metrotimes.com/news/bell-hooks-tough-love-2170606 |access-date=2025-03-05 |website=[[Detroit Metro Times]] |language=en}}</ref> to personal memoirs; and sexuality (in regards to feminism and politics of aesthetics and [[visual culture]]). ''Reel to Real: race, sex, and class at the movies'' (1996) collects film essays, reviews, and interviews with film directors.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Winchester|first=James|year=1999|title=Reel to Real: Race, Sex, and Class at the Movies|journal=[[The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism]]|volume=57|issue=3|pages=388|doi=10.2307/432214|jstor=432214}}</ref> In ''[[The New Yorker]]'', [[Hua Hsu]] said these interviews displayed the facet of hooks' work that was "curious, empathetic, searching for comrades".<ref name="Hsu-2021"/> In ''[[Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center]]'' (1984), hooks develops a critique of white feminist racism in [[second-wave feminism]], which she argued undermined the possibility of feminist solidarity across racial lines.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Isoke|first=Zenzele|date=December 2019|title=Bell Hooks: 35 Years from Margin to Center β Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. By Bell Hooks. New York: Routledge, [1984] 2015. 180 pp. 23.96 (paperback).|journal=Politics & Gender|language=en|volume=15|issue=4|doi=10.1017/S1743923X19000643|s2cid=216525770|issn=1743-923X|doi-access=free}}</ref> As hooks argued, communication and literacy (the ability to read, write, and [[critical thinking|think critically]]) are necessary for the feminist movement because without them people may not grow to recognize gender inequalities in society.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Olson|first=Gary A.|date=1994|title=Bell Hooks and the Politics of Literacy: A Conversation|journal=Journal of Advanced Composition|volume=14|issue=1|pages=1β19|issn=0731-6755|jstor=20865945}}</ref> In ''Teaching to Transgress'' (1994), hooks' attempts a new approach to education for minority students.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom * Bell Hooks Books |url=https://bellhooksbooks.com/product/teaching-to-transgress/ |access-date=March 15, 2023 |language=en-US}}</ref> Particularly, hooks' strives to make scholarship on theory accessible to "be read and understood across different class boundaries".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Judd |first=Caitlin |date=December 31, 2021 |title=What Bell Hooks taught me |url=https://cambridgegirltalk.com/2021/12/31/what-bell-hooks-taught-me/ |access-date=January 17, 2024 |website=Cambridge Girl Talk |language=en |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230920085144/https://cambridgegirltalk.com/2021/12/31/what-bell-hooks-taught-me/ |archive-date=September 20, 2023 |url-status=usurped}}</ref> 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.<ref name="chronicle">{{cite web | title=Bell Hooks Digs In | url=http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2002-05-24/93217/ | first=Lauri | last=Apple | website=The Austin Chronicle | date=May 24, 2002 | access-date=December 11, 2013 | archive-date=December 22, 2013 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131222190327/http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2002-05-24/93217/ | url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title=Postmarks β Southwestern Graduation Debacle |first= Jean|last= Kilker|url=http://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/2002-05-24/93184/ | website=The Austin Chronicle | date=May 24, 2002 | access-date=December 11, 2013 | archive-date=October 15, 2014 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141015002703/http://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/2002-05-24/93184/ | url-status=live}}</ref> ''[[The Austin Chronicle]]'' 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".<ref name="chronicle"/> In 2004, she joined Berea College as Distinguished Professor in Residence.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.berea.edu/appalachiancenter/people/default.asp |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100528042644/http://www.berea.edu/appalachiancenter/people/default.asp |url-status=dead |title=Faculty and Staff |archive-date=May 28, 2010 |publisher=[[Berea College]] |access-date=December 15, 2021}}</ref> Her 2008 book, ''belonging: a culture of place'', includes an interview with author [[Wendell Berry]] as well as a discussion of her move back to Kentucky.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Belonging: a culture of place|last=hooks|first=bell|date=January 1, 2009|publisher=Routledge |isbn=9780415968157|language=en|oclc = 228676700}}</ref> She was a scholar in residence at [[The New School]] on three occasions, the last time in 2014.<ref>{{Cite web|date=September 18, 2014|title=Bell Hooks returns for Third Residency at The New School|url=https://www.newschool.edu/pressroom/pressreleases/2014/bell_hook_oct.htm|access-date=December 16, 2021|publisher=[[The New School]]|archive-date=November 7, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161107195019/http://www.newschool.edu/pressroom/pressreleases/2014/bell_hook_oct.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> Also in 2014, the ''bell hooks Institute'' was founded at Berea College;<ref name="Encyclopaedia Britannica"/> in 2017 she dedicated her papers to the college.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Burke |first1=Minyvonne |last2=Garcia |first2=Michelle |date=December 15, 2021 |title=Acclaimed author and activist Bell Hooks dies at 69 |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/acclaimed-author-activist-bell-hooks-dies-69-rcna8895 |access-date=December 25, 2021 |publisher=[[NBC News]]}}</ref> During her time at Berea College, hooks also founded the bell hooks center<ref>{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeRj3Fntgso |title=Introducing the bell hooks center |language=en |access-date=2024-04-01 |via=www.youtube.com}}</ref> along with professor Dr. M. Shadee Malaklou.<ref name="berea.edu">{{Cite web |title=The Bell Hooks center at Berea College - Feminism is for everybody |url=https://www.berea.edu/bhc/ |access-date=November 11, 2022 |website=The Bell Hooks center |language=en-US}}</ref> The center was established to provide underrepresented students, especially black and brown, femme, queer, and Appalachian individuals at Berea College, a safe space where they can develop their activist expression, education, and work.<ref>{{Cite web |title=About the Bell Hooks center |url=https://www.berea.edu/bhc/about/ |access-date=November 11, 2022 |website=The Bell Hooks center |language=en-US}}</ref> The center cites hooks' work and her emphasis on the importance of feminism and love as the inspiration and guiding principles of the education it offers. The center offers events and programming with an emphasis on radical feminist and anti-racist thought.<ref name="berea.edu"/> She was often critical of the films of [[Spike Lee]]. In her essay, 'Spike Lee Doing Malcolm X: Denying Black Pain', hooks argues that Lee's "film does not compel viewers to confront, challenge, and change. It embraces and rewards passive response - inaction. It encourages us to weep, but not to fight."<ref>hooks, bell, Outlaw Culture, Routledge Classics 2008, p192</ref> She saw Lee as an "insider" to the film industry, making a film for predominently white audiences that followed the conventions of "other Hollywood epic ... fictive biographies". She described the first half of the film as being half "neo-minstrel spectacle" and half "tragic"; criticised the portrayal of Malcolm's relationship with Sophia as having the "same shallowness of vision" as Lee's other filmic portrayals of interracial relationships; and disavowed Denzel Washington's potential to escape his reputation as "everybody's nice guy", meaning that he could never portray Malcolm's "'threatening' physical presence". All of which made Malcolm "appear less militant, more open". In her reading of the film, Lee is "primarily fascinated by Malcolm's fierce critique of white racism" and his early view of racism as "a masculinist phallocentric struggle for power between white men and black men". Thus, the film missed Malcolm's later politics in which he had a "critique of racism in conjunction with imperilaism and colonialism" and the film "certainly" did not contain Malcolm's "critique of capitalism". She also said that he wrote Black women in the same objectifying way that White male filmmakers write the characters of White women.<ref>{{Cite book|last=hooks|first=bell|date=2014-10-10|title=Black Looks|doi=10.4324/9781315743226|isbn=9781315743226}}</ref> She also criticized the documentary ''[[Paris Is Burning (film)|Paris Is Burning]]'' for depicting the ritual of the balls as a spectacle to "pleasure" white spectators.<ref name=":2">{{cite journal |author=Phillip Brian Harper |title='The Subversive Edge': ''Paris Is Burning'', Social Critique, and the Limits of Subjective Agency. |journal=Diacritics |volume=24 |issue=2/3 |year=1994 |pages=90β103 |doi=10.2307/465166 |jstor=465166 }}</ref> She was inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame in 2018.<ref name="Guardian obit"/><ref>{{Cite web |last=Potter |first=Leslie |date=January 31, 2018 |title=Four Kentucky authors were inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame |url=https://www.ket.org/program/2018-kentucky-writers-hall-of-fame/2018-kentucky-writers-hall-of-fame/ |website=[[Kentucky Educational Television]]}}</ref> In 2020, during the [[George Floyd protests]], there was a resurgence of interest in hooks' work on racism, feminism, and capitalism.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Bernstein |first=Sharon |date=December 15, 2021 |title=Black feminist writer and intellectual Bell Hooks dies at 69 |language=en |work=Reuters |url=https://www.reuters.com/world/us/black-feminist-writer-intellectual-bell-hooks-dies-69-2021-12-15/ |access-date=March 15, 2023}}</ref>
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