bell hooks

"I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else's whim or to someone else's ignorance."
bell hooks

 

bell hooks, 2009 (Photo public domain)

Fearless, passionate, and outspoken, bell hooks is the pen name of Gloria Jean Watkins, a well-known educator,feminist, and author.  Born in Kentucky in 1952, she published her first major work Ain't I a Woman in 1981.  She has been a professor of Ethnic Studies, Women's Studies, and English at Yale, Oberlin, and City College of New York.
She is the author of more than 30 books, some of which are in the Fogelson Library collection and are on display near the front entrance of the library.

"The function of art is to do more than tell it like it is--it’s to imagine what is possible."

— bell hooks

"I entered the classroom with the conviction that it was crucial for me and every other student to be an active participant, not a passive consumer...education as the practice of freedom.... education that connects the will to know with the will to become. Learning is a place where paradise can be created."
— bell hooks 

"One of the most subversive institutions in the United States is the public library."
— bell hooks Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-Esteem



Find books by bell hooks in the Fogelson Library collection by searching the catalog under author or see the special display of some of her works starting Sunday March 6.