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bell hooks

Geboren: September 25, 1952 – Hopkinsville, Kentucky, United States

bell hooks was an American author, feminist theorist, and cultural critic whose work examined race, gender, class, education, and love. Her influential books include Ain’t I a Woman?, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, and All About Love. She published more than 30 books and shaped feminist and cultural studies discourse.

Biografie & Werdegang des Autors

bell hooks, born Gloria Jean Watkins in 1952 in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, emerged from a working-class Black family in the segregated South and carried that early experience into nearly every phase of her writing. She adopted the pen name “bell hooks” from her maternal great-grandmother, styling it in lowercase to shift attention away from authorial celebrity and toward the work itself. After attending segregated schools and then integrated institutions, she studied English at Stanford University, earned a master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and later completed a doctorate at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A decisive early turning point came when she wrote Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism while still very young; its eventual publication in 1981 announced a critic who would insist that race, gender, and class be understood as interlocking forces rather than separate subjects.

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quote
Love is an action, never simply a feeling
-All About Love
quote
The classroom remains the most radical space of possibility in the academy
-Teaching to Transgress
quote
To educate as the practice of freedom is a way of teaching that anyone can learn
-Teaching to Transgress
quote
I came to theory because I was hurting
-Theory as Liberatory Practice
quote
I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else's whim or to someone else's ignorance
-The Last Interview
quote
Prayer is a space of reckless abandonment
-all divine love
quote
Being oppressed means the absence of choices
-Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center

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Stimmen der Community

"Trailblazing Black feminist bell hooks, whose graceful, probing and wide-ranging books sought to empower people of all races, classes and genders"

The Washington Post

"Celebrated as a breakthrough cultural critic, bell hooks embraced expansive interests as a thinker and a prolific writer"

Stanford Magazine

"bell hooks was among the most influential thinkers of her time"

Associated Press

"bell hooks was a radical feminist, a scholar and author who spent the ’90s publishing about a book a year"

TIME

"bell hooks is celebrated for trailblazing contributions to gender theory, political discourse, and Black feminist thought"

Publishers Weekly

"bell hooks was one of the great cultural critics and writers of the twentieth century"

The New Yorker

"bell hooks embodied amazing courage and deeply felt intelligence"

Margaret Atwood

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