Editing Bell hooks

{{Short description|American author and activist (1952–2021)}}
{{For|the mixtape|Bell Hooks (mixtape){{!}}''Bell Hooks'' (mixtape)}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:bell hooks}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2024}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = bell hooks
| image              = bell hooks, October 2014.jpg
| caption            = hooks in October 2014
| birth_name         = Gloria Jean Watkins
| birth_date         = {{birth date|1952|9|25}}
| birth_place        = [[Hopkinsville, Kentucky]], U.S.
| death_date         = {{death date and age |2021|12|15|1952|9|25}}
| death_place        = [[Berea, Kentucky]], U.S.
| education          = {{ubl|[[Stanford University]] ([[B. A.|BA]])|[[University of Wisconsin–Madison]] ([[M. A.|MA]])|[[University of California, Santa Cruz]] ([[PhD]])}}
| years_active       = 1978–2018
| occupation         = {{flatlist|
*author
*academic
*activist
}}
| known_for          = [[Oppositional gaze]]
| notable_works      = {{plainlist|
*''[[Ain't I a Woman? (book)|Ain't I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism]]'' (1981)
*''[[Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center]]'' (1984)
*''[[Teaching to Transgress]]'' (1994)
*''[[All About Love: New Visions]]'' (2000)
*''[[Teaching Community: A pedagogy of hope]]'' (2003)
*''[[We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity]]'' (2004)
}}
| website            = {{URL|https://web.archive.org/web/20210108230404/http://www.bellhooksinstitute.com/}}
}}

'''Gloria Jean Watkins''' (September 25, 1952 – December 15, 2021), better known by her pen name '''bell hooks''' (stylized in lowercase),<ref name="pen-name">{{cite news |last=Smith |first=Dinitia |date=September 28, 2006 |title=Tough arbiter on the web has guidance for writers |page=E3 |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/books/28chic.html |url-status=live |access-date=February 21, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180703133936/https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/books/28chic.html |archive-date=July 3, 2018 |quote=But the Chicago Manual says it is not all right to capitalize the name of the writer bell hooks because she insists that it be lower case.}}</ref> <!-- Do not capitalize -->was an American author, theorist, educator, and social critic who was a Distinguished Professor in Residence at [[Berea College]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Holland |first=Jennifer L. |title=Tiny you: a western history of the anti-abortion movement |date=2020 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-96847-9 |location=Oakland, California}}</ref> She was best known for her writings on race, [[feminism]], and class.<ref name="Guardian obit">{{cite news |last=Knight |first=Lucy |date=December 15, 2021 |title=Bell Hooks, author and activist, dies aged 69 |work=[[The Guardian]] |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/dec/15/bell-hooks-author-and-activist-dies-aged-69 |url-status=live |accessdate=December 15, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211215184243/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/dec/15/bell-hooks-author-and-activist-dies-aged-69 |archive-date=December 15, 2021}}</ref><ref name="Encyclopaedia Britannica">{{cite web |last=Tikkanen |first=Amy | title=Bell Hooks {{!}} American scholar |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/bell-hooks |website=[[Encyclopaedia Britannica]]|publisher=Stanford University|date=November 27, 2019 |access-date=March 31, 2022 |language=en}}</ref> She used the lower-case spelling of her name to decenter herself and draw attention to her work instead. The focus of hooks' writing was to explore the [[intersectionality]] of race, [[capitalism]], and gender, and what she described as their ability to produce and perpetuate systems of [[oppression]] and [[classism|class domination]]. She published around 40 books, including works that ranged from essays, poetry, and children's books. She published numerous scholarly articles, appeared in documentary films, and participated in public lectures. Her work addressed love, [[Race (human categorization)|race]], [[social class]], gender, art, history, sexuality, mass media, and feminism.<ref name="Hsu-2021">{{Cite magazine|last=Hsu|first=Hua|date=December 15, 2021|title=The Revolutionary Writing of Bell Hooks|url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/postscript/the-revolutionary-writing-of-bell-hooks|url-status=live|access-date=December 16, 2021|magazine=The New Yorker|language=en-US|archive-date=December 16, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211216061035/https://www.newyorker.com/culture/postscript/the-revolutionary-writing-of-bell-hooks}}</ref>

She began her academic career in 1976 teaching English and [[ethnic studies]] at the [[University of Southern California]]. She later taught at several institutions including [[Stanford University]], [[Yale University]], [[New College of Florida]], and [[The City College of New York]], before joining Berea College in [[Berea, Kentucky]], in 2004.<ref name="Get to know Bell Hooks">{{Cite web|title=Get to Know Bell Hooks|url=https://www.berea.edu/bhc/about-bell/|access-date=December 15, 2021|website=The Bell Hooks center|language=en-US|archive-date=December 15, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211215180252/https://www.berea.edu/bhc/about-bell/|url-status=live}}</ref> In 2014, hooks also founded the bell hooks Institute at Berea College.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.bellhooksinstitute.com//|title=About the Bell Hooks institute|website=Bell Hooks institute|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210108230404/http://www.bellhooksinstitute.com//|access-date=December 17, 2021|url-status=usurped|archive-date=January 8, 2021}}, via [[archive.org]]</ref> Her pen name was borrowed from her maternal [[great-grandmother]], Bell Blair Hooks.<ref name="Inspired Eccentricity, Talking Back">hooks, bell, "Inspired Eccentricity: Sarah and Gus Oldham" in Sharon Sloan Fiffer and Steve Fiffer (eds), ''Family: American Writers Remember Their Own'', New York: Vintage Books, 1996, p.&nbsp;152.{{pb}}
hooks, bell, ''Talking Back'', Routledge, 2014 [1989], p.&nbsp;161.</ref>

==Early life==
Gloria Jean Watkins was born on September 25, 1952, to a working-class African-American family, in [[Hopkinsville]],<ref name="nytobit">{{Cite news|last=Risen|first=Clay|date=December 15, 2021|title=Bell Hooks, Pathbreaking Black Feminist, Dies at 69|language=en-US|work=[[The New York Times]]|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/15/books/bell-hooks-dead.html|access-date=December 15, 2021|issn=0362-4331|url-access=subscription|archive-date=December 15, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211215211938/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/15/books/bell-hooks-dead.html|url-status=live}}</ref> a small, [[Racial segregation in the United States|segregated]] town in [[Kentucky]].<ref name="medea1997">{{Cite book|last=Medea|first=Andra|title=Facts on File Encyclopedia of Black Women in America|publisher=[[Infobase Publishing|Facts on File]]|year=1997|isbn=0-8160-3425-7|editor-last=Hine|editor-first=Darlene Clark|editor-link=Darlene Clark Hine|location=New York|pages=[[iarchive:blackwomeninamer00edit 0/page/100/mode/1up|100–101]]|chapter=hooks, bell (1952–)|oclc=35209436}}</ref> Watkins was one of six children born to Rosa Bell Watkins (''née'' Oldham) and Veodis Watkins.<ref name="Hsu-2021"/> Her father worked as a janitor and her mother worked as a maid in the homes of white families.<ref name="Hsu-2021"/> In her memoir ''[[Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood]]'' (1996), Watkins would write of her "struggle to create self and identity" while growing up in "a rich magical world of southern black culture that was sometimes paradisiacal and at other times terrifying".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/bell-hooks/bone-black/|title=Bone Black|date=August 15, 1996|work=[[Kirkus Reviews]]|access-date=December 22, 2021}}</ref>

An avid reader (with poets [[William Wordsworth]], [[Langston Hughes]], [[Elizabeth Barrett Browning]] and [[Gwendolyn Brooks]] among her favorites),<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/17/bell-hooks-obituary|title=Bell Hooks obituary {{!}} Trailblazing writer, activist and cultural theorist who made a pivotal contribution to Black feminist thought|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|first=Margaret|last=Busby|author-link=Margaret Busby|date=December 17, 2021}}</ref> Watkins was educated in [[School segregation in the United States|racially segregated]] [[Public school (government funded)|public schools]], later moving to an [[Racial integration|integrated]] school in the late 1960s.<ref name="leblanc1997"/> This experience greatly influenced her perspective as an educator, and it inspired scholarship on education practices as seen in her book, ''Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Teaching to Transgress – Books |url=https://actbuildchange.com/books/teaching-to-transgress/ |access-date=March 15, 2023 |website=Act Build Change |date=July 14, 2020 |language=en-GB}}</ref> She graduated from [[Hopkinsville High School]] before obtaining her BA in English from [[Stanford University]] in 1973,<ref name="kumar2007">{{Cite book|title=Something about the Author|publisher=[[Gale (publisher)|Gale]]|year=2007|isbn=978-1-4144-1071-5|editor-last=Kumar|editor-first=Lisa|volume=170|pages=[[iarchive:somethingaboutau00lisa 1/page/116/mode/1up|112–116]]|chapter=hooks, bell 1952–|issn=0276-816X|oclc=507358041}}</ref> and her [[Master of Arts|MA]] in English from the [[University of Wisconsin–Madison]] in 1976.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Significant Contemporary American Feminists: A Biographical Sourcebook|last=Scanlon|first=Jennifer|publisher=Greenwood Press|year=1999|isbn=978-0313301254|location=Westport, CT|pages=[https://archive.org/details/significantconte00scan/page/125 125–132]|url=https://archive.org/details/significantconte00scan/page/125}}</ref> During this time, Watkins was writing her book ''[[Ain't I a Woman (book)|Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism]]'', which she began writing at the age of 19 ({{c.}} 1971)<ref>{{Cite web|title=Remembering Bell Hooks (1952-2021)|url=https://somethingcurated.com/2021/12/20/remembering-bell-hooks-1952-2021/|date=December 2021}}</ref> and then published (as bell hooks) in 1981.<ref name="Encyclopaedia Britannica"/>

In 1983, after several years of teaching and writing, hooks completed her doctorate in English at the [[University of California, Santa Cruz]], with a [[dissertation]] on author [[Toni Morrison]] entitled "Keeping a Hold on Life: Reading Toni Morrison's Fiction".<ref>{{Cite thesis|title=Keeping a hold on life: reading Toni Morrison's fiction|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/9514473|date=1983|language=en|first=bell|last=hooks|oclc=9514473|access-date=December 15, 2021|archive-date=December 15, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211215190840/https://www.worldcat.org/title/keeping-a-hold-on-life-reading-toni-morrisons-fiction/oclc/9514473|url-status=live}} WorldCat.</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dlixAAAAIAAJ|first=bell|last=hooks|title=Keeping a Hold on Life: Reading Toni Morrison's Fiction|publisher=University of California, Santa Cruz|date= 1983}}</ref>

==Influences==
Included among hooks' influences is the American abolitionist and feminist [[Sojourner Truth]]. Truth's "[[Ain't I a Woman?]]" inspired hooks' first major [[Ain't I a Woman? (book)|book]].<ref>{{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=March 15, 2023 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Also, the Brazilian educator [[Paulo Freire]] is mentioned in hooks' book ''Teaching to Transgress''. His perspectives on education are present in the first chapter, "engaged pedagogy".<ref>{{Cite book |last=hooks |first=bell |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/30668295 |title=Teaching to transgress : education as the practice of freedom |date=1994 |isbn=0-415-90807-8 |location=New York |oclc=30668295}}</ref> Other influences include Peruvian theologian [[Gustavo Gutiérrez]],<ref>{{Cite web |last=Sarkar |first=Somnath |date=July 11, 2021 |title=Aint I a Woman? {{!}} Feminist Theory of Bell Hooks |url=https://www.eng-literature.com/2021/07/feminist-theory-of-bell-hooks.html |access-date=March 15, 2023 |website=All About English Literature |language=en-US}}</ref> psychologist [[Erich Fromm]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Richards |first=Aleta |date=September 22, 2000 |title=All About Love. (Book reviews: love everybody right now) |url=https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&issn=&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA83698173&sid=googleScholar&linkaccess=abs |journal=Civil Rights Journal |language=en |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=58–61}}</ref> playwright [[Lorraine Hansberry]],<ref>{{Cite news |last=Trescott |first=Jacqueline |date=February 9, 1999 |title=A WOMAN OF HER WORDS |language=en-US |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1999/02/09/a-woman-of-her-words/fd1f95a4-b6d7-43ef-b1f7-95c98d30637f/ |access-date=March 15, 2023 |issn=0190-8286}}</ref> Buddhist monk [[Thích Nhất Hạnh]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=Bell Hooks tells the story of the first time she met Thich Nhat Hanh - Lions Roar |date=December 21, 2017 |url=https://www.lionsroar.com/bell-hooks-on-meeting-thich-nhat-hanh/ |access-date=March 15, 2023 |language=en-US}}</ref> and African American writer [[James Baldwin]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=hooks |first=bell |title=Why James Baldwin Is Important: Books, Quotes, Essays, Poems, Movie, Biography * Bell Hooks Books |url=https://bellhooksbooks.com/why-james-baldwin-is-important-books-quotes-essays-poems-movie-biography/ |access-date=March 15, 2023 |language=en-US}}</ref>

==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 (1952–)|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|704–706]]}}</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 1952–|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|125–129]]|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=241–242|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&nbsp;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 – 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=1–19|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 – 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=90–103 |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>

==Personal life and death==
Regarding her sexual identity, hooks described herself as "queer-pas-gay".<ref>{{cite news|last=Ring|first=Trudy|title=Queer Black Feminist Writer Bell Hooks Dies at 69|work=The Advocate|date=December 15, 2021|accessdate=December 15, 2021|url=https://www.advocate.com/people/2021/12/15/queer-black-feminist-writer-bell-hooks-dies-69|archive-date=December 15, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211215184532/https://www.advocate.com/people/2021/12/15/queer-black-feminist-writer-bell-hooks-dies-69|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Goodman |first=Elyssa |title=How Bell Hooks Paved the Way for Intersectional Feminism |url=https://www.them.us/story/bell-hooks |access-date=December 16, 2021 |work=them. |date=March 12, 2019 |archive-date=December 15, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211215194950/https://www.them.us/story/bell-hooks |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.thefocus.news/culture/bell-hooks-queer-pas-gay/|title='Queer-pas-gay' identity meaning explored as Bell Hooks dies aged 69|first=Amber|last=Peake|work=The Focus|date=December 16, 2021|access-date=December 29, 2021|archive-date=December 29, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211229213519/https://www.thefocus.news/culture/bell-hooks-queer-pas-gay/|url-status=dead}}</ref> She used the term "pas" from the French language, translating to "not" in the English language. She describes being [[queer]] in her own words as "not who you're having sex with, but about being at odds with everything around it".<ref>{{cite web |title=Bell Hooks - Are You Still a Slave? Liberating the Black Female Body {{!}} Eugene Lang College |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJk0hNROvzs |publisher=[[The New School]] |date= May 7, 2014|access-date=March 7, 2022}}</ref> She stated, "As the essence of queer, I think of [[Tim Dean]]'s work on being queer, and queer not as being about who you're having sex with—that can be a dimension of it—but queer as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it, and it has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live."<ref>{{cite news |last=Peake |first=Amber |title='Queer-pas-gay' identity meaning explored as Bell Hooks dies aged 69 |url=https://www.thefocus.news/culture/bell-hooks-queer-pas-gay/ |access-date=March 7, 2022 |work=TheFocus |date=December 16, 2021 |archive-date=December 29, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211229213519/https://www.thefocus.news/culture/bell-hooks-queer-pas-gay/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> During an interview with Abigail Bereola in 2017, hooks revealed to Bereola that she was single while they discussed her love life. During the interview, hooks told Bereola, "I don't have a partner. I've been celibate for 17 years. I would love to have a partner, but I don't think my life is less meaningful."<ref>{{cite news |last=Bereola |first=Abigail |title=Tough Love With Bell Hooks |url=https://www.shondaland.com/inspire/books/a14418770/tough-love-with-bell-hooks/ |access-date=March 7, 2022 |publisher=[[Shondaland]] |date=December 13, 2017}}</ref>

On December 15, 2021, bell hooks died from kidney failure at her home in Berea, Kentucky, aged 69.<ref name="Guardian obit"/>

===Buddhism===
Through her interest in [[Beat poetry]] and after an encounter with the poet and Buddhist [[Gary Snyder]], hooks was first introduced to [[Buddhism]] in her early college years.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Tworkov |first=Helen |title=Agent of Change |url=https://tricycle.org/magazine/bell-hooks-buddhism/ |access-date=November 11, 2022 |website=Tricycle: The Buddhist Review |date=January 9, 2017 |language=en}}</ref> She described herself as finding Buddhism as part of a personal journey in her youth, centered on seeking to recenter love and spirituality in her life and configure these concepts into her focus on activism and justice.<ref>{{Cite web |last=hooks |first=bell |title=Building a Community of Love – Lion's Roar |date=March 24, 2017 |url=https://www.lionsroar.com/bell-hooks-and-thich-nhat-hanh-on-building-a-community-of-love/ |access-date=November 27, 2022 |language=en-US}}</ref> After her initial exposures to Buddhism, hooks incorporated it into her Christian upbringing and this combined Christian-Buddhist thought influenced her identity, activism, and writing for the remainder of her life.<ref name="Medine, Carolyn M 2022">Medine, Carolyn M. Jones Medine. "Bell Hooks, Black Feminist Thought, and Black Buddhism: A Tribute". ''Journal of World Philosophies''. 7 (Summer 2022): pages 187–196.</ref>

She was drawn to Buddhism because of the personal and academic framework it offered her to understand and respond to suffering and discrimination as well as love and connection. She describes the Christian-Buddhist focus on everyday practice as fulfilling the centering and grounding needs of her everyday life.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Yancy |first1=George |last2=hooks |first2=bell |date=December 10, 2015 |title=Bell Hooks: Buddhism, the Beats and Loving Blackness |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/10/bell-hooks-buddhism-the-beats-and-loving-blackness/ |access-date=November 27, 2022 |website=Opinionator |language=en}}</ref>

Buddhist thought, especially the work of Thích Nhất Hạnh, appears in multiple of hooks' essays, books, and poetry.<ref name="Medine, Carolyn M 2022"/> Buddhist spirituality also played a significant role in the creation of love ethic which became a major focus in both her written work and her activism.<ref>Medine, C. M. J. "Bell Hooks, Black Feminist Thought, and Black Buddhism: A Tribute". ''Journal of World Philosophies'', volume 7, number 1, July 2022, pages 187–196, https://scholarworks.iu.edu/iupjournals/index.php/jwp/article/view/5479 .</ref>

== Legacy and impact ==
<!--Per [[MOS:PERSONAL]], the guidance on capitalizing names: "An exception [to capitalizing names as proper nouns] is made when the lowercase variant has received regular and established use in reliable independent sources. In these cases, the name is still capitalized when at the beginning of a sentence, per the normal rules of English." Do not lower-case the subject's name at the beginning of sentences.-->

Bell hooks was included in [[Utne Reader]]'s 1995 "100 Visionaries Who Could Change Your Life"<ref name="p853">{{cite web | last=Brozan | first=Nadine | title=CHRONICLE | website=The New York Times | date=January 23, 1995 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/23/nyregion/chronicle-537295.html | access-date=August 22, 2024}}</ref> and included in [[Time (magazine)|TIME magazine]]'s "100 Women of the Year" in 2020, where she was described as "that rare rock star of a public intellectual who reaches wide by being accessible".<ref>{{Cite magazine |date=2020-03-05 |title=bell hooks: 100 Women of the Year |url=https://time.com/5793676/bell-hooks-100-women-of-the-year/ |access-date=2024-03-31 |magazine=TIME |language=en}}</ref>

With a literary repertoire comprising over 30 books and contributions to prominent magazines such as Ms., Essence, and [[Tricycle: The Buddhist Review]], hooks commands attention with her blend of social commentary, autobiography, and feminist critique. Regardless of the subject matter, her writings consistently display scholarly rigor conveyed through accessible prose.

Prior to her tenure at Berea College, hooks held teaching positions at esteemed institutions like [[Stanford]], Yale, and [[The City College of New York]]. Her influence transcends academia, as evidenced by her residencies both in the United States and abroad. In 2014, [[St. Norbert College]] dedicated an entire year to celebrating her contributions with "A Year of bell hooks".<ref>{{Cite web |title=year of bell hooks {{!}} St. Norbert College |url=https://www.snc.edu/cvc/images/programs/2013-14/bellhooks/#:~:text=In%20its%20inaugural%20year,%20the,April%2015-17,%202014. |access-date=2024-03-31 |website=www.snc.edu |language=en}}</ref>

The popularity of hooks' writing surged amidst [[United States racial unrest (2020–2023)|the racial justice movements]] ignited by the deaths of [[George Floyd]] and [[Breonna Taylor]] in 2020, with her book ''[[All About Love: New Visions]]'' entering the New York Times bestseller list over 20 years after its publication.<ref name="o571">{{cite web | author=The Associated Press | title=A new generation of readers embraces bell hooks' 'All About Love' | website=NBC News | date=March 12, 2024 | url=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/bell-hooks-all-about-love-success-posthumous-rcna143020 | access-date=August 22, 2024}}</ref><!--Commenting out the following as it is entirely original research. Small portions could be incorporated into the narrative on her writing, but secondary sources are preferable.

==Influences==
[[File:Raffi-kojian 20180402 181909701.jpg|300px|thumb|A Bell Hooks quote graffiti (translated to Armenian) on a wall in [[Yerevan]] in the days leading up to [[2018 Armenian revolution|Armenia's Velvet Revolution]]. The original quote is "To be oppressed means to be deprived of your ability to choose."]]
Figures who influenced hooks include African-American [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist]] and feminist [[Sojourner Truth]] (whose speech ''Ain't I a Woman?'' inspired her first major work), Brazilian educator [[Paulo Freire]] (whose perspectives on education she embraces in her theory of engaged pedagogy), Peruvian theologian and [[Dominican Order|Dominican]] priest [[Gustavo Gutiérrez]], psychologist [[Erich Fromm]], playwright [[Lorraine Hansberry]], [[Buddhist]] monk [[Thich Nhat Hanh]], African-American writer [[James Baldwin (writer)|James Baldwin]], Guyanese historian [[Walter Rodney]], African-American [[black nationalist]] leader [[Malcolm X]], and African-American [[civil rights movement|civil rights]] leader [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] (who addresses how the strength of love unites communities).<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.iapl.info/CONFERENCE_HISTORY/IAPL_2001/iapl_2001_keynote_speaker.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070131175411/http://www.iapl.info/CONFERENCE_HISTORY/IAPL_2001/iapl_2001_keynote_speaker.htm |url-status=dead |title=Notes on IAPL 2001 Keynote Speaker, Bell Hooks|archive-date=January 31, 2007}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=1844|title=Shambhalasun.com|website=shambhalasun.com}}</ref> She said of Martin Luther King Jr.'s notion of a beloved community, "He had a profound awareness that the people involved in oppressive institutions will not change from the logics and practices of domination without engagement with those who are striving for a better way."<ref>{{Cite journal|title = The Beloved Community: A Conversation between Bell Hooks and George Brosi|journal = Appalachian Heritage|date = January 1, 2012|issn = 1940-5081|pages = 76–86|volume = 40|issue = 4|doi = 10.1353/aph.2012.0109|first1 = George|last1 = Brosi|first2 = bell|last2 = hooks|s2cid = 144664893}}</ref>
== ''Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom'' ==
In her 1994 book ''Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom,'' hooks writes about a transgressive approach in education where educators can teach students to "transgress" against what she sees as racial, sexual, and class boundaries.<ref name="1952- 11">{{Cite book|title=Teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom|last=hooks|first=bell|isbn=9781135200015|location=New York|pages=11|oclc=877868009|date=March 18, 2014}}</ref> She sees the classroom as a source of constraint but also a potential source of liberation. She argues that teachers' use of control and power over students dulls the students' enthusiasm and teaches obedience to authority, "confin[ing] each pupil to a rote, assembly-line approach to learning".<ref>hooks, ''Teaching to Transgress'', page 12.</ref> She advocates that universities should encourage students and teachers to transgress, and seeks ways to use collaboration to make learning more relaxing and exciting. She describes teaching as a performative act and teachers as catalysts that invite everyone to become more engaged and activated. According to hooks, the performative aspect of learning "offers the space for change, invention, spontaneous shifts, that can serve as a catalyst drawing out the unique elements in each classroom".<ref name="1952- 11"/> She  dedicates a chapter of the book to [[Paulo Freire]], written in a form of a dialogue between herself, Gloria Watkins, and her writing voice, Bell Hooks.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/teachingtotransg0000hook/page/45|title=Teaching to transgress : education as the practice of freedom|last=hooks|first=bell|date=1994|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0415908085|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/teachingtotransg0000hook/page/45 45–59]|oclc=30668295}}</ref> In the last chapter of the book, hooks raises the question of eros or the erotic in classroom environments. According to hooks, eros and the erotic do not need to be denied for learning to take place. She argues that one of the central tenets of [[feminist pedagogy]] has been to subvert the [[Mind–body dualism|mind-body dualism]] and allow oneself as a teacher to be whole in the classroom, and as a consequence wholehearted.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/teachingtotransg0000hook/page/193|title=Teaching to transgress|last=hooks|date=1994|publisher=Routledge|location=New York|page=[https://archive.org/details/teachingtotransg0000hook/page/193 193]|isbn=9780415908085}}</ref>

==''Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope''==
In 2004, 10 years after the success of ''Teaching to Transgress'', Bell Hooks published ''Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope''. In this book, hooks offers advice about how to continue to make the classroom what she sees as a place that is life-sustaining and mind expanding, a place of liberating mutuality where teacher and student together work in partnership.<ref name=":02">{{Cite book|first=bell|last=hooks|title=Teaching community : a pedagogy of hope|date=2003|publisher=[[Routledge]]|location=Abingdon, England|isbn=9781135457921|pages=XV|oclc=846494699}}</ref> She writes that education as a practice of freedom enables us to confront feelings of loss and restore our sense of connections and consequently teaches us how to create community.<ref name=":02"/>

==''Feminist Theory''==
{{main| Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center}}
In 1984, hooks published ''[[Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center]]'' . Here she argues that popular [[feminist theory]] has marginalized diverse voices, and states: "To be in the margin is to be part of the whole but outside the main body."<ref>hooks (1984), ''Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center'', p. xvi.</ref> She argues that it is impossible for feminism to make women equal to men because in Western society not all men are equal. She says, "Women in lower class and poor groups, particularly those who are non-white, would not have defined [[women's liberation]] as women gaining social equality with men since they are continually reminded in their everyday lives that all women do not share a common social status."<ref>hooks (1984), ''Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center''.</ref>

She offers what she sees as a new, more inclusive feminist theory. Her theory encourages the long-standing idea of sisterhood, but advocates that women acknowledge their differences while accepting each other. She urges feminists to consider gender's relation to race, class, and sex, a concept which came to be known as [[intersectionality]]. She argues for the importance of male involvement in the movement toward equality, as necessary for change to occur. She calls for a restructuring of the cultural framework of power to one that does not find the oppression of others necessary.<ref>hooks (1984), ''Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center'', p. 92.</ref>

Part of this restructuring involves accepting men into the feminist movement, so that a separatist ideology is discouraged in favor of an inclusive one. Additionally, hooks wants feminism to move away from the predominant views of bourgeois white women and toward a movement of varied social classes, and both genders, for the raising up of women.<ref>hooks (1984), ''Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center'', p. 74.</ref>

Another part of restructuring the movement involves education: hooks observes that there is an anti-intellectual bias among the masses. Poor people do not want to hear from intellectuals, according to hooks, because they are different and have different ideas. This bias against intellectuals leads the poor to shun those people of poor backgrounds who have risen up to graduation from post-secondary education, because they are no longer like the rest of the masses. In order for society to achieve equality, hooks says people must be able to learn from those who have been able to break these stereotypes. This separation of the poor from their potential teachers leads to further inequality, according to hooks, and in order for the feminist movement to succeed, it must be able to bridge the education gap and relate to those at the lower end of the economic sphere. In the chapter "Rethinking The Nature of Work", hooks criticizes those in the feminist movement who "do not have radical political perspectives" and accept the existing economic structure, especially when they are successful within it.<ref>{{Cite book|title = Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center|last = hooks|first = bell|publisher = Pluto Press|year = 1984|isbn = 978-0-89608-614-2|location = London|page = 102}}</ref>

==''Reel to Real''==
In her book ''Reel to Real'', hooks discusses the effect that movies have on the 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."{{sfnp|hooks|1996}}

She focuses on what she sees as problematic racial representations. She describes her experiences growing up watching mainstream movies and
other media and believes that film's representations have largely negated the black female.{{sfnp|hooks|1996}} 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".{{sfnp|hooks|1996}}

==''Black Looks: Race and Representation''==
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 describes it as a way for black people, especially black women, to develop a critical approach  to mass media. Writing that for her this "gaze" had always been political, hooks says that the idea began when she thought about incidents  of black slaves being punished merely for gazing at their white owners. She wondered how much such experience had been absorbed and carried through the generations to affect black spectatorship and black parenting.<ref>{{cite book |last=hooks |first=bell |title=Black Looks: Race and Representation |url=https://archive.org/details/blacklooksracere00hook_105 |url-access=limited |date=1992 |publisher=South End Press |location=Boston |page=[https://archive.org/details/blacklooksracere00hook_105/page/n62 115]}}</ref> hooks writes that because she remembered how she had dared to look at adults as a child, even though she was forbidden to, she knew that slaves had looked too.<ref>{{cite book |last=hooks |title=Black Looks|url=https://archive.org/details/blacklooksracere00hook_244 |url-access=limited |date=1992 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/blacklooksracere00hook_244/page/n120 115]–116}}</ref> Drawing on [[Michel 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 voice and declaring: "Not only will I stare. I want my look to change reality."<ref>{{cite book |last=hooks |title=Black Looks|url=https://archive.org/details/blacklooksracere00hook_244 |url-access=limited |date=1992 |page=[https://archive.org/details/blacklooksracere00hook_244/page/n121 116]}}</ref>

She writes that when black people started watching films and television in the United States, they realized that mass media was part of the system  of [[white supremacy]], and thus watching became a space for black people to develop a critical spectatorship; an oppositional gaze. Prior to racial integration, according to hooks, black viewers "... experienced visual pleasure in a context where looking was also about contestation and confrontation".<ref>{{cite book |last=hooks |title=Black Looks |url=https://archive.org/details/blacklooksracere00hook_244 |url-access=limited |date=1992 |page=[https://archive.org/details/blacklooksracere00hook_244/page/n122 117]}}</ref> However, she avers that this spectatorship was quite different for black women than for black men. According to hooks, black men could renounce the racism of the screen images while also imagining "[[Phallocentrism|phallocentric]]" power by objectifying the white female cast as the object of male desire; privately rebelling against a reality in which black men were punished for publicly gazing at white women.<ref name="Black Looks, p. 118">{{cite book |last=hooks |title=Black Looks |url=https://archive.org/details/blacklooksracere00hook_105 |url-access=limited |date=1992 |page=[https://archive.org/details/blacklooksracere00hook_105/page/n62 118]}}</ref>

For hooks, black women's spectatorship was more complicated. In a media environment that was both racist and sexist, black female bodies were largely absent from early motion pictures and, when present, were there in maidservant roles to "... enhance and maintain white womanhood as object of the phallocentric gaze".<ref name="Black Looks, p. 118"/><ref>{{cite book |last=hooks |title=Black Looks |url=https://archive.org/details/blacklooksracere00hook_105 |url-access=limited |date=1992 |page=[https://archive.org/details/blacklooksracere00hook_105/page/n63 119]}}</ref> The response of many black women, according to hooks, was to turn away in alienation from such images.<ref>{{cite book |last=hooks |title=Black Looks |url=https://archive.org/details/blacklooksracere00hook_105 |url-access=limited |date=1992 |page=[https://archive.org/details/blacklooksracere00hook_105/page/n63 120]}}</ref>  Another was to evade conflict and be entertained by identifying with the white female object of desire.<ref>{{cite book |last=hooks |title=Black Looks |url=https://archive.org/details/blacklooksracere00hook_244 |url-access=limited |date=1992 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/blacklooksracere00hook_244/page/n125 120]-121}}</ref> A third possibility was the oppositional gaze, a willingness to stare critically at the on-screen images with the intent to change reality.<ref>{{cite book |last=hooks |title=Black Looks |url=https://archive.org/details/blacklooksracere00hook_105 |url-access=limited |date=1992 |page=[https://archive.org/details/blacklooksracere00hook_105/page/n64 122]}}</ref>

According to hooks, the more black women are able to construct themselves as subjects rather than objects in daily life, the more they are likely to develop an oppositional gaze.<ref>{{cite book |last=hooks |title=Black Looks |url=https://archive.org/details/blacklooksracere00hook_105 |url-access=limited |date=1992 |page=[https://archive.org/details/blacklooksracere00hook_105/page/n67 127]}}</ref> This process is affected in turn by the representation of black women in mass media. Thus, hooks stresses the importance of black female film makers such as [[Julie Dash]], [[Ayoka Chenzira]], and [[Zeinabu Davis]] among others.<ref>{{cite book |last=hooks |title=Black Looks |url=https://archive.org/details/blacklooksracere00hook_244 |url-access=limited |date=1992 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/blacklooksracere00hook_244/page/n133 128]–131}}</ref>
-->

==Films==
*''[[Black is... Black Ain't]]'' (1994)<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/Riggs-Eloquent-Last-Plea-for-Tolerance-3034313.php|title=Riggs' Eloquent Last Plea for Tolerance|author=Guthmann, Edward|date=May 5, 1995|access-date=December 15, 2021|publisher=Hearst|newspaper=SFGATE|archive-date=March 7, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160307105441/http://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/Riggs-Eloquent-Last-Plea-for-Tolerance-3034313.php|url-status=live}}</ref>
*''Give a Damn Again'' (1995){{sfn|McCluskey|2007|pp=301–302}}
*''[[Cultural Criticism and Transformation]]'' (1997)<ref name="kumar2007"/>
*''My Feminism'' (1997)<ref>{{cite news|title=FeMiNAtions: Despite the pleas and its promotional tone, ''My Feminism'' makes a valid point|work=[[The Globe and Mail]]|date=May 23, 1998|page=18|id={{ProQuest|1143520117}}}}</ref>
*''Voices of Power'' (1999)<ref>{{cite web|title=Voices of Power: African-American Women. Series Title: I Am Woman|url=https://emro.libraries.psu.edu/record/index.php?id=672|access-date=December 15, 2021|publisher=The Pennsylvania State University|archive-date=December 16, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211216061038/https://emro.libraries.psu.edu/record/index.php?id=672|url-status=live}}</ref>
*''[[BaadAsssss Cinema]]'' (2002){{sfn|McCluskey|2007|p=57}}
*''I Am a Man: Black Masculinity in America'' (2004){{sfn|McCluskey|2007|p=355}}
<!--* ''Writing About a Revolution: A Talk'' (2004)-->
*''Happy to Be Nappy and Other Stories of Me'' (2004)<ref>{{cite web|title=Happy to Be Nappy and Other Stories of Me|url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/546688/happy-to-be-nappy-and-other-stories-of-me#overview|access-date=December 15, 2021|publisher=Turner Classic Movies|archive-date=April 10, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210410220821/https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/546688/happy-to-be-nappy-and-other-stories-of-me#overview|url-status=live}}</ref>
*''Is Feminism Dead?'' (2004)<ref>{{cite web|title=Is Feminism Dead?|url=https://www.films.com/id/148|access-date=December 15, 2021|publisher=Films Media Group|archive-date=December 16, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211216061049/https://www.films.com/id/148|url-status=live}}</ref>
*''Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action'' (2008)<ref>{{cite news|title=Best Bets|work=[[The Daytona Beach News-Journal]]|date=December 3, 2010|page=E6|id={{ProQuest|856086736}}}}</ref>
*''[[Occupy Love]]'' (2012)<ref>{{cite news|title=Occupying your heart: Documentary looks at roots behind global activism movement|work=[[The Cairns Post]]|date=April 10, 2013|page=31|id={{ProQuest|1324698794}}}}</ref>
*''Hillbilly'' (2018)<ref>{{Cite web|last=Crust|first=Kevin|date=October 3, 2018|title=Review: Documentary 'Hillbilly' takes on media stereotypes of Appalachia|url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-capsule-hillbilly-review-20180927-story.html|access-date=December 15, 2021|work=[[Los Angeles Times]]|language=en-US|archive-date=January 25, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210125182223/https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-capsule-hillbilly-review-20180927-story.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

==Awards and nominations==
*''Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics'': The [[American Book Award]]s / [[Before Columbus Foundation]] Award (1991)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://bookweb.org/btw/awards/The-American-Book-Awards---Before-Columbus-Foundation.html|title=The American Book Awards / Before Columbus Foundation|publisher=American Booksellers Association|year=2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130313174235/http://bookweb.org/btw/awards/The-American-Book-Awards---Before-Columbus-Foundation.html|access-date=December 15, 2021|archive-date=March 13, 2013|via=Internet Archive}}</ref>
*bell hooks: The Writer's Award from the [[Lila Wallace–Reader's Digest Fund]] (1994)<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/22/arts/10-writers-win-grants.html|title=10 Writers Win Grants|date=December 22, 1994|access-date=December 15, 2021|newspaper=The New York Times|archive-date=November 18, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211118065026/https://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/22/arts/10-writers-win-grants.html|url-status=live}}</ref>
*''Happy to Be Nappy'': [[NAACP Image Award]] nominee (2001)<ref>{{cite web|access-date=December 15, 2021|url=https://www.alkebulanimages.com/shop/books/happy-to-be-nappy-board%20book/9781484788417/|title=Happy to Be Nappy|publisher=Alkebu-Lan Image|archive-date=December 15, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211215212301/https://www.alkebulanimages.com/shop/books/happy-to-be-nappy-board%20book/9781484788417/|url-status=live}}</ref>
*''Homemade Love'': The [[Bank Street College]] Children's Book of the Year (2002)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://carnegiecenterlex.org/kentucky-writers-hall-of-fame/kentucky-writers-hall-of-fame-inductees-2018/bell-hooks/|title=Bell Hooks|access-date=December 15, 2021|publisher=The Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning|archive-date=December 15, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211215190215/https://carnegiecenterlex.org/kentucky-writers-hall-of-fame/kentucky-writers-hall-of-fame-inductees-2018/bell-hooks/|url-status=live}}</ref>
*''Salvation: Black People and Love'': [[Hurston/Wright Legacy Award]] nominee (2002)<ref>{{Cite news|date=August 21, 2002|title=Footlights|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/21/theater/footlights.html|access-date=December 15, 2021|issn=0362-4331|archive-date=March 5, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200305044430/https://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/21/theater/footlights.html|url-status=live}}</ref>
*bell hooks: ''[[Utne Reader]]''{{'}}s "100 Visionaries Who Could Change Your Life"<ref name="Get to know Bell Hooks"/><ref name="UCSantaCruz">{{cite web|last=Rappaport|first=Scott|date=April 25, 2007|title=May 10 Bell Hooks event postponed|url=https://news.ucsc.edu/2007/04/1231.html|access-date=December 15, 2021|publisher=University of California, Santa Cruz, Regents of the University of California|archive-date=August 18, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210818201329/https://news.ucsc.edu/2007/04/1231.html|url-status=live}}</ref>
*bell hooks: ''[[The Atlantic Monthly]]''{{'}}s "One of our nation's leading public intellectuals"<ref name=UCSantaCruz/>
*bell hooks: [[Time 100#Time 100 Women of the Year|''Time'' 100 Women of the Year]], 2020<ref>{{cite news |last=hampton |first=dream |title=Bell Hooks: 100 Women of the Year |url=https://time.com/5793676/bell-hooks-100-women-of-the-year/ |access-date=December 16, 2021 |magazine=Time |date=March 5, 2020 |language=en |archive-date=December 15, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211215183838/https://time.com/5793676/bell-hooks-100-women-of-the-year/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

==Published works==
{{Library resources box|by=yes|viaf=79115934 |label=Bell Hooks}}

===Adult books===
{{Div col|colwidth=40em}}
*{{cite book |title=And There We Wept: poems |year =1978 |publisher=Golemics|location=Los Angeles, California|oclc=6230231}}
*{{cite book|title=Ain't I a Woman?: Black women and feminism|year=1981|isbn=978-0-89608-129-1|title-link=Ain't I a Woman? (book)|publisher=[[South End Press]] |location=Boston, Massachusetts|ref=none}}
*{{cite book|title=Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center|year=1984|isbn=978-0-89608-613-5|publisher=South End Press|title-link=Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center|ref=none}}
*{{cite book|title=Talking Back: Thinking feminist, thinking Black|year=1989|isbn=978-0-921284-09-3|publisher=Between the Lines|ref=none}} Excerpted in {{cite book |title=Daughters of Africa |title-link=Daughters of Africa |editor-first=Margaret |editor-last=Busby |editor-link=Margaret Busby |date=1992 |location=New York, New York |publisher=[[Pantheon Books]] |ref=none}}
*{{cite book|title=Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics|publisher=South End Press|year=1990|isbn=978-1-1-38821-75-0|location=Boston, Massachusetts|ref=none}}
*With [[Cornel West]], {{cite book|title=Breaking bread: insurgent Black intellectual life|url=https://archive.org/details/breakingbreadins00hook|url-access=registration|year=1991|isbn=978-0-89608-414-8|location=Boston, Massachusetts |publisher=South End Press|ref=none}}
*{{cite book |title=Black Looks: Race and representation | year = 1992 |publisher=South End Press|location=Boston, Massachusetts| isbn = 978-0-89608-434-6|ref=none}}
*{{cite book|title=Sisters of the Yam: Black women and self-recovery|publisher=South End Press|year=1993|isbn=978-1138821682|location=Boston, Massachusetts|ref=none}}
*{{cite book| title = Teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom| year = 1994| isbn = 978-0-415-90808-5| url = https://archive.org/details/teachingtotransg0000hook|location=New York|publisher=Routledge|ref=none}}
*{{cite book|title=Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations|year=1994|isbn=978-0-415-90811-5|location=New York|publisher=Routledge|ref=none}}
*{{cite book|title=Killing rage: ending racism|url=https://archive.org/details/killingrageendin00hook|url-access=registration|publisher=Henry Holt and Co.|year=1995|isbn=978-0-8050-5027-1|location=New York|ref=none}}
*{{cite book|title=Art on my mind: visual politics|publisher=The New Press |year=1995|isbn=978-1-56584-263-2|location=New York|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/artonmymindvisua0000hook|ref=none}}
*{{cite book |title= Reel to Real: Race, Sex, and Class at the Movies | year = 1996 | isbn = 978-0-415-91824-4|ref=none| publisher = Psychology Press }}
*{{cite book|title=Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood|publisher=Henry Holt & Co.|year=1996|isbn=978-0-8050-4146-0|location=New York|title-link=Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood|ref=none}}
*{{cite book|title=Wounds of Passion: A writing life|publisher=Henry Holt & Co.|year=1997|isbn=978-0-8050-5722-5|url=https://archive.org/details/woundsofpassion00bell|location= New York |ref=none}}
*{{cite book|title=Remembered Rapture: the writer at work|publisher=Henry Holt and Co.|year=1999|isbn=978-0-8050-5910-6|ref=none}}
*{{cite book|title=Justice: childhood love lessons|publisher=HarperCollins|year=2000|isbn=978-0-688-16844-5|url=https://archive.org/details/allaboutlove00bell|ref=none}}
*{{cite book|title=All About Love: New Visions|location=New York |publisher=William Morrow|year=2000|isbn=978-0-06-095947-0|title-link=All About Love: New Visions|ref=none}}
*{{cite book |title= Feminism is for everybody: passionate politics | url = https://archive.org/details/feminismisforeve00hook| url-access = registration|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |publisher= South End Press| year = 2000 | isbn = 978-0-89608-628-9|ref=none}}
*{{cite book|title=Where we stand: class matters|year=2000|isbn=978-0-415-92913-4|url=http://carbonfarm.us/amap/hooks_class.pdf|publisher=Routledge|ref=none}}
*{{cite book|title=Salvation: Black people and love|year=2001|isbn=978-0-06-095949-4|location=New York |publisher= Perennial|url=https://archive.org/details/salvation00bell|ref=none}}
*{{cite book|title=Communion: the female search for love|year=2002|isbn=978-0-06-093829-1|location=New York, New York |publisher= Perennial|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/communionfemales0000hook|ref=none}}
*{{cite book |title= Teaching community: a pedagogy of hope | url = https://archive.org/details/teachingcommunit00bell| url-access = registration| publisher = Routledge | location = New York | year = 2003 | isbn = 978-0-415-96818-8|ref=none}}
*{{cite book| title = Rock my soul: Black people and self-esteem| publisher = Atria Books| location = New York, New York | year = 2003| isbn = 978-0-7434-5605-0| url = https://archive.org/details/rockmysoulblackp00hook|ref=none}}
*{{cite book| title = The will to change: men, masculinity, and love| publisher = Atria Books| location = New York| year = 2004| isbn = 978-0-7434-5607-4| url = https://archive.org/details/willtochangemenm00hook|oclc=53930053|ref=none}}
*{{cite book |title= We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity | publisher = Routledge | location = New York, New York | year = 2004 | isbn = 978-0-203-64220-7| title-link = We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity|ref=none}}
*{{cite book |title= Soul Sister: Women, Friendship, and Fulfillment | publisher = South End Press | location = Cambridge, Massachusetts | year = 2005 | isbn = 978-0-89608-735-4|ref=none}}
*With [[Amalia Mesa-Bains]], {{cite book | title= Homegrown: engaged cultural criticism | publisher = South End Press | location = Cambridge, Massachusetts | year = 2006 | isbn = 978-0-89608-759-0|ref=none}}
*{{cite book |title= Belonging: a culture of place | publisher = Routledge | location = New York, New York | year = 2009 | isbn = 978-0-203-88801-8 |ref=none}}
*{{cite book |title= Teaching Critical Thinking: practical wisdom | publisher = Routledge | location = New York, New York | year = 2010 | isbn = 978-0-415-96820-1 |ref=none}}
*{{cite book |title= Appalachian Elegy: poetry and place | publisher = University Press of Kentucky | location = Lexington | series = Kentucky Voices Series | year = 2012 | isbn = 978-0-8131-3669-1 |ref=none}}
*{{cite book |title= Writing Beyond Race: Living Theory and Practice | publisher = Routledge | location = New York, NY | year = 2013 | isbn = 978-0-415-53914-2 |ref=none}}
*With [[Stuart Hall (cultural theorist)|Stuart Hall]], ''Uncut Funk: A Contemplative Dialogue'', Foreword by [[Paul Gilroy]]. New York, NY: Routledge. 2018. {{ISBN|978-1138102101}}.
{{Div col end}}

===Children's books===
*{{cite book | others= [[Chris Raschka]] (illustrator)|title= Happy to be Nappy |publisher=[[Little, Brown Books for Young Readers]]| year = 1999| isbn = 978-0-7868-2377-2 |ref=none}}
*{{cite book |title= Homemade Love | publisher = [[Hyperion Books for Children]] | location = New York | year = 2002 | isbn = 978-0786825530 |ref=none}}
*{{cite book |title= Be boy buzz | url =https://archive.org/details/beboybuzz00hook| url-access =registration| publisher = Hyperion Books for Children | location = New York | year= 2002 |isbn = 978-0786816439 |ref=none}}
*{{cite book | others = Chris Raschka (illustrator) |title= Skin again | publisher = Hyperion Books for Children | location = New York | year = 2004 | isbn = 9780786808250 |ref=none}}
*{{cite book| others = Chris Raschka (illustrator) | title = Grump groan growl | publisher = Hyperion Books for Children | location = New York | year = 2008 | isbn = 978-0786808168 | url = https://archive.org/details/grumpgroangrowl00hook |ref=none}}

===Book sections===
*{{citation | last = hooks | first = bell | contribution = Black women and feminism | editor-last1 = Richardson | editor-first1 = Laurel | editor-last2 = Taylor | editor-first2 = Verta A.|editor2-link= Verta Taylor | title = Feminist frontiers III | pages = [https://archive.org/details/feministfrontier0000unse_l0n5/page/444 444–449] | publisher = McGraw-Hill | location = New York | year = 1993 | isbn = 978-0075570011 | postscript = . | url = https://archive.org/details/feministfrontier0000unse_l0n5/page/444 |ref=none}}
*{{citation | last =hooks | first = bell| contribution = Continued devaluation of Black womanhood | editor-last1 = Jackson | editor-first1 = Stevi | editor-last2 = Scott | editor-first2 = Sue | editor-link1 = Stevi Jackson | editor-link2 = Sue Scott (sociologist) | title = Feminism and sexuality: a reader | pages = 216–223 | publisher = Columbia University Press | location = New York | year = 1996 | isbn = 978-0231107082 | postscript = .|ref=none}}
*{{citation | last = hooks | first = bell | contribution = Sisterhood: political solidarity between women | editor-last1 = McClintock | editor-first1 = Anne | editor-last2 = Mufti | editor-first2 = Aamir | editor-last3 = Shohat | editor-first3 = Ella | editor-link1 = Anne McClintock | editor-link3 = Ella Shohat | title = Dangerous liaisons: gender, nation, and postcolonial perspectives | pages = [https://archive.org/details/dangerousliaison0000unse/page/396 396–414] | publisher = [[University of Minnesota Press]] | location = Minnesota, Minneapolis | year = 1997 | isbn = 978-0816626496 | postscript = . | url = https://archive.org/details/dangerousliaison0000unse/page/396 |ref=none}}
*{{citation | last = hooks | first = bell | contribution = Selling hot pussy: representations of Black female sexuality in the cultural marketplace | editor-last1 = Richardson | editor-first1 = Laurel | editor-last2 = Taylor | editor-first2 = Verta A.|editor2-link= Verta Taylor | editor-last3 = Whittier | editor-first3 = Nancy |editor3-link=Nancy Whittier| title = Feminist frontiers | pages = 119–127 | publisher = McGraw-Hill | location = Boston | year = 2004 | edition = 5th | isbn = 978-0072824230 | postscript = .|ref=none}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20160304064830/http://www.feminish.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/bell-hooks-Selling-Hot-Pussy-representation-of-black-womens-sexuality.pdf Pdf.]
*{{citation | last = hooks | first = bell | contribution= Black women: shaping feminist theory | editor-last1 = Cudd | editor-first1 = Ann E. | editor-last2 = Andreasen | editor-first2 = Robin O. | editor-link1 = Ann Cudd | title = Feminist theory: a philosophical anthology | pages = 60–68 | publisher = [[Blackwell Publishing]] | location = Oxford, UK; Malden, Massachusetts | year = 2005 | isbn = 978-1405116619 | postscript = .|ref=none}}
*{{citation | last =hooks | first = bell| contribution = Lorde: The Examination of Justice | editor-last1 = Byrd | editor-first1 = Rudolph P. | editor-last2 = Cole | editor-first2 = Johnnette Betsch | editor-last3 = Guy-Sheftall | editor-first3 = Beverly | title = I Am Your Sister: Collected and Unpublished Writings of Audre Lorde | pages = 242–248 | publisher = Oxford University Press | location = New York | year = 2009 | isbn = 978-0199846450 | postscript = .|ref=none}}

==References==
===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Cited sources===
{{refbegin}}
*{{cite book | last = hooks | first = bell | contribution= Black women: shaping feminist theory | editor-last1 = Cudd | editor-first1 = Ann E. | editor-last2 = Andreasen | editor-first2 = Robin O. | editor-link1 = Ann Cudd | title = Feminist theory: a philosophical anthology | pages = 60–68 | publisher = Blackwell Publishing | location = Oxford, UK; Malden, Massachusetts | year = 2005 | isbn = 978-1405116619 }}
*{{cite book |last=hooks |first=bell |title=Black Looks: Race and Representation |url=https://archive.org/details/blacklooksracere00hook_105 |url-access=limited |date=1992 |publisher=South End Press |location=Boston|isbn= 978-0-89608-434-6}}
*{{cite book |last=hooks |first=bell |date=1996 |title=Reel to Real: Race, Sex, and Class at the Movies |location=New York |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-91824-4 }}
*{{Cite book|last=McCluskey|first=Audrey Thomas|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z5qmplifVDIC|title=Frame by Frame III: A Filmography of the African Diasporan Image, 1994–2004|year=2007|publisher=[[Indiana University Press]]|isbn=978-0-253-34829-6|language=en|access-date=December 15, 2021|archive-date=January 15, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170115122757/https://books.google.com/books?id=z5qmplifVDIC|url-status=live}}
{{refend}}

==Further reading==
{{refbegin|50em}}
*{{citation | last1 = hooks | first1 = bell | last2 = Trend | first2 = David | contribution = Representation and democracy an interview | editor-last = Trend | editor-first = David | title = Radical democracy: identity, citizenship, and the state | pages = 228–236 | publisher = Routledge | location = New York | year = 1996 | isbn = 978-0415912471 |ref=none}}
*{{cite book|title=bell hooks' Engaged Pedagogy|oclc=38239473|last = Florence|first = Namulundah|isbn = 978-0-89789-564-4|publisher = Bergin & Garvey|year = 1998|location = Westport, Connecticut|ref=none}}
*Leitch et al., eds. "bell hooks". ''The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism''. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001. pp.&nbsp;2475–2484. {{ISBN|0-393-97429-4}}
*{{cite book|title = Talking About a Revolution|oclc = 38566253|publisher = South End Press|editor-last = South End Press Collective|year = 1998|location = Cambridge|pages = [https://archive.org/details/talkingaboutrevo00sout/page/39 39–52]|chapter = Critical Consciousness for Political Resistance|isbn = 978-0-89608-587-9|chapter-url = https://archive.org/details/talkingaboutrevo00sout/page/39 |ref=none}}
*{{cite book|title=Other Sisterhoods: Literary Theory and U.S. Women of Color|oclc=36446785|publisher = University of Illinois Press|isbn = 978-0-252-02361-3|editor-last = Stanley|editor-first = Sandra Kumamoto|year = 1998|location = Chicago |ref=none}}
*{{cite book|title=Black Popular Culture|oclc=40548914|last = Wallace|first = Michele|publisher = The New Press|year = 1998|location = New York|isbn = 978-1-56584-459-9 |ref=none}}
*{{cite book|last=Whitson
 |first=Kathy J.
 |title=Encyclopedia of Feminist Literature
 |year=2004
 |publisher=[[Greenwood Publishing Group]]
 |location=Westport, Connecticut
 |isbn=978-0-313-32731-5
 |oclc=54529420
 |url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaoffe0000whit
 |url-access=registration
 |ref=none
 |pages=[[iarchive:encyclopediaoffe0000whit/page/110/mode/1up|110–111]]
 }}{{refend}}

==External links==
{{Sister project links|bell hooks|wikt=no|b=no|q=bell hooks|s=no|commons=Category:bell hooks|n=no|v=no|species=no|d=y|voy=no|m=no|mw=no}}

* [https://bereaarchives.libraryhost.com/repositories/2/resources/137 bell hooks papers] (archival finding aid published by [[Berea College]] Special Collections & Archives)

*[https://www.lionsroar.com/author/bell-hooks/ bell hooks articles] published in ''[[Lion's Roar (magazine)|Lion's Roar]]'' magazine.
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070927203415/http://www.southendpress.org/authors/46 South End Press] (books by hooks published by [[South End Press]])
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20060222215043/http://www.library.ucsb.edu/libwaves/mar00/hooks.html University of California, Santa Barbara] (biographical sketch of hooks)
*[https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Postmodern_Blackness_18270.html "Postmodern Blackness"] (article by hooks)
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070730222132/http://www.wholeterrain.org/bio.cfm?Contributor_ID=198 Whole Terrain] (articles by hooks published in ''[[Whole Terrain]]'')
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070119143606/http://www.soaw.org/new//article.php?id=910 Challenging Capitalism & Patriarchy] (interviews with hooks by Third World Viewpoint)
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20110707174919/http://ascentmagazine.com/articles.aspx?articleID=133&page=read&subpage=past&issueID=24 Ingredients of Love] (an interview with ''[[ascent (magazine)|Ascent]]'' magazine)
*{{IMDb name|0393654|name=bell hooks}}
*{{C-SPAN|41634}}
**[https://www.c-span.org/video/?169843-1/depth-bell-hooks ''In Depth'' interview with hooks, May 5, 2002]
*Lawrence Chua, [https://bombmagazine.org/articles/bell-hooks/ "bell hooks"] (interview), [[Bomb (magazine)|''BOMB'' magazine]], July 1, 1994
*[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/dec/16/bell-hooks-remembered-she-reminded-us-of-the-better-world-we-were-working-towards "bell hooks remembered: 'She embodied everything I wanted to be'"], ''The Guardian'', December 16, 2021.
*[https://mediadiversified.org/2021/12/16/for-bell-hooks/ "For bell hooks"], [[Media Diversified]], December 16, 2021.
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkJKJZU7xXU "Remembering bell hooks & Her Critique of 'Imperialist White Supremacist Heteropatriarchy{{'"}}]. ''[[Democracy Now!]]''
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJk0hNROvzs "bell hooks - Are You Still a Slave? Liberating the Black Female Body | Eugene Lang College"], The New School (via YouTube), May 6, 2014.

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