bell hooks

there is really no bell hooks thread.

i've never read anything as desperately as i did the will to change. nothing has ever made me think more about who i wanted to be. it found me at exactly the right time and place. feminism as a sort of personal transformation that affects all of us. i always meant to read more and probably will in the coming year, especially all about love. rip.

hua hsu

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/postscript/the-revolutionary-writing-of-bell-hooks

only 69, goddamn

https://www.oprahdaily.com/entertainment/books/g32958834/bell-hooks-books/

profoundly influential in that way you suspect will only become apparent decades from now

ashamed to say i am unfamiliar with her writing, but have reserved a copy of Communion to remedy that asap

Same. I read her in grad school in the mid '90s but I don't often keep up with academic critics.

I spent an hour at my uni library correcting it, though.

I taught her essay on Madonna last year.

Not one of her major efforts, but when I stumbled across her essay on Pulp Fiction in my teens, it was really eye-opening in getting me to think about just what I was enjoying in the film. Have always remembered the line about Samuel L. Jackson's hair being its own character.

I think I was looking up what else I need to read a few days ago when I found out she was still alive. Was thinking she was already gone. So weird timing.
I just read Ain't I A Woman which was quite good nice and scathing about racism of expected allies. Now onto Sisters of the Yam. & wanting to read a lot more.
I think I have all the titles in the Irish library system ordered.
Hoping I'm not just missing her books in charity shops by bad timing. Just don't see them.
Did catch some webinars on her work over the last year and a half. But nothing with her live. Did see at least one with Angela Davis though which was cool.
& her name was one cited by curator at the last TULCA Festival last month.

Don't know why I didn't discover her earlier. Hope other people do now and finding her work gets easier.

somehow forgot there was another Angela Davis webinar today
https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/mountains-take-take-wing-angela-y-davis-and-yuri-kochiyama-tickets-211927108687?keep_tld=1
so bell will probably come up in the conversation

https://www.papermag.com/lil-kim-bell-hooks-cover-1427357106.html?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2

That Lil' Kim interview is good, but her interview with Ice Cube from Spin is even better.

shit

she used to have a regular column in Z Magazine and it was always the first thing i read

i knew she was prolific but i'm sort of surprised at how active she's been over the last ten years. lots of different modes too. like, cultural critic, academic/historian, interpersonal relationship doctor.

yeah she swam so easily between modes. she has a whole book about 'love' which i will confess to not having read despite being given it as a gift several years ago

i really connected with her 'doctor' stuff but knew about the other modes too, in passing. also, her writing is one of the best examples of making complicated concepts clear and compelling i've ever encountered. just an incredible communicator. she should be considered on par with critics like susan sontag or pauline kael, but better, because she was also a political revolutionary and had this fearless moral compass.

wau @ the Kim interview

seeing so many of her books seem to be not very cheap. could do with a cheap anthology. are a lot of them academically published or something.

Many libraries carry them. She wrote a lot. I read Where We Stand over the holiday.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3Q02nMr02xh2zzS3CRvJM5?si=ec8fd634f4f24701
just listening to this from summer 2029

imagine getting evicted by bell hooks lol https://t.co/OUFUjHhYoS

— reggae soul warrior (@samuelwockhardt) March 28, 2023

lol, a very unexpected entry to the self-victimising landlord genre

the will to change (what i charge for rent)