bell hooks

Gloria Jean Watkins was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, in 1952. She grew up under segregation and later adopted the pen name bell hooks, writing it in lower case to direct attention towards her ideas rather than her public persona.

After publishing the poetry collection “And There We Wept” in 1978, she gained a wide readership with “Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism” (1981). That book examined racism within feminism and sexism within movements for Black liberation, insisting that neither could be understood in isolation.

In “Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center” (1984), hooks argued for a movement attentive to those pushed to its margins. Across more than thirty books, she wrote about education, representation, class and the possibilities of love. “All About Love” (2000) brought ethical and political questions into an accessible discussion of everyday relationships.

She taught at institutions including Yale, Oberlin, the City College of New York and Berea College. hooks also described herself as queer, using the term to question restrictive expectations of identity and belonging. She died in 2021. Her writing continues to connect intellectual argument with the language and experiences of ordinary life.