The Legacy of bell hooks

“To truly be free, we must choose beyond simply surviving adversity, we must dare to create lives of sustained optimal wellbeing and joy.” – bell hooks
December 15, 2021

bell hooks: author, feminist, scholar

The Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion celebrates the life and work of author, feminist, and scholar bell hooks (September 25, 1952 - December 15, 2021). Her scholarship broadened feminism to include the voice of Black and poor women, who were often excluded from suffrage and civil rights movements, not only in the United States, but globally. She was a consequential intellectual and a consummate human being. We celebrate her life and legacy. 

Community Gathering

Friday, December 17th | 4:30pm-5:30pm | Join the Zoom | Contact: mcquade@sonoma.edu

Join Professor Lena McQuade, Chair of Women's & Gender Studies, and other SSU colleagues as we honor the life and work of bell hooks. Attendees are welcome to read out loud a bell hooks quote or passage that has been meaningful in your life. You are also welcome to just show up and listen as a way of paying respect.

Learn More About bell hooks

  • The bell hooks center
  • Why bell hooks didn’t capitalize her name
  • Books by bell hooks
  • Articles on Lion’s Roar
  • bell hooks & john a. powell: Belonging Through Connection (Othering & Belonging Conference 2015)
  • “Love as the Practice of Freedom”
  • Feminism is for Everybody
  • bell hooks: A Starter Kit (list adapted from the New York Times, In Praise of bell hooks, February 28, 2019)​
    • ​​ ‘Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center’ (1984) Considered a follow-up to “Ain’t I A Woman.” A smart analysis of the future of the women’s movement.
    • ‘Talking Back: Thinking, Thinking Black’ (1989) Anthology of essays about feminism and finding her material and voice as a writer, including “to Gloria, who is she: on using a pseudonym” and “Ain’t I A Woman: looking back.”
    • ‘Black Looks: Race and Representation’ (1992) Anthology of essays, including the knockout, “Eating the Other,” and film-studies canon essay, “The Oppositional Gaze.”
    • ‘Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom’ (1994) An exciting and liberating work of practical pedagogy for teachers and students.
    • ‘Outlaw Culture’ (1994) Anthology of cultural criticism, including film, music and books. A terrific essay on rap music, “Gangsta Culture — Sexism and Misogyny,” which my friend Dionne Bennett, another former student of bell hooks and an anthropologist at City Tech, teaches because “There is no better essay on this topic,” says Dionne.
    • ‘We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity’ (2004) Anthology of insightful cultural criticism of how white culture marginalizes and represses black men.