bell hooks, the revered queer feminist scholar, social activist and author, has died aged 69. A passionate advocate for many causes, her work addressed a range of topics from intersectional feminism and race to art, history and love.
bell hooks was born Gloria Jean Watkins on the 25th of September, 1952, in in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. An avid reader and writer from a young age, bell was educated in racially segregated public schools and eventually graduated from Hopkinsville High School. bell received her BA in English from Stanford University in 1973, and her MA in English from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1976, the same year she began her teaching career. She then completed her doctorate in English in 1987 at the University of California, going on to teach at institutions such as Yale, University of Southern California and Berea College.
‘The function of art is to do more than tell it like it is – it’s to imagine what is possible.’
bell hooks, Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations (2012)
bell hooks published over 30 books in her lifetime, starting with the poetry collection And There We Wept in 1978. The author adopted the pen name ‘bell hooks’ in honour of her beloved grandmother, using lowercase letters to distinguish her work. Other notable books from bell include Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism (1981), Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (1984), Feminism is for everybody: passionate politics (2004), We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity (2004), and Writing beyond race: living theory and practice (2013). She also engaged in cultural criticism, reviewing works such as Beyonce’s Lemonade, and wrote a small number of books for children. In 2014, she founded the bell hooks Institute at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky.
bell hooks’ family released a statement via Twitter that they were “honoured that Gloria received numerous awards, honours, and international fame for her works as a poet, author, feminist, professor, cultural critic, and social activist. We are proud to just call her sister, friend, confidant, and influencer.”
Find more books by bell hooks here.
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Olivia Fricot
Olivia Fricot (she/her) is Booktopia's Senior Content Producer and editor of the Booktopian blog. She has too many plants and not enough bookshelves, and you can usually find her reading, baking, or talking to said plants. She is pro-Oxford comma.
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Comments
January 10, 2022 at 11:22 am
‘The function of art is to do more than tell it like it is – it’s to imagine what is possible.’
bell hooks, Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations (2012)
The idea that we can Imagine more that what we thought was possible can open doors and opportunities to help us rise above the tyrannical and disenfranchising features of our own lives. Pamela Clark 10.1.22 Australia