Who was Bell Hooks?

Bell Hooks was the pseudonym of Gloria Jean Watkins. The American scholar was born September 25, 1952, Hopkinsville, Kentucky, U.S and died December 15, 2021, Berea, Kentucky. She was an activist whose work examined the connections between race, gender, and class. She often explored the varied perceptions of Black women and Black women writers and the development of feminist identities.

The name "Bell Hooks" is borrowed from her maternal great-grandmother, Bell Blair Hooks.

The focus of Hooks's writing was the intersectionality of race, capitalism, and gender, and what she described as their ability to produce and perpetuate systems of oppression and class domination. She published more than 30 books and numerous scholarly articles, appeared in documentary films, and participated in public lectures. Her work addressed race, class, gender, art, history, sexuality, mass media, and feminism.

Also an academic, she taught at institutions including Stanford University, Yale University, and The City College of New York, before in 2004 joining Berea College in Berea, Kentucky, where a decade later she founded the Bell Hooks Institute.