One to One with Bill Goodman:
bell hooks
aired December 1, 29, and 31, 2006
Internationally known feminist writer and cultural critic bell hooks—born Gloria Jean Watkins in Hopkinsville—is Bill Goodman’s guest on this edition of One to One.
The author of more than 30 books and numerous scholarly and mainstream articles, hooks has described herself as a “black woman intellectual revolutionary activist.” In her work, she addresses race, class, and gender in education, art, history, sexuality, mass media, and feminism.
Writing about the myriad forms of racism in the United States, from subtle to blatant, she has criticized the way in which the plight of black women has been either ignored or worsened not only by what she has termed “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy” but also, in many instances, by the mainstream feminist movement and the black liberation struggle.
In the interview, hooks discusses her childhood in Hopkinsville, how she transcended her humble origins to attend Stanford University in California, and the many close friendships she made in Kentucky and maintains to this day. Now a professor at Berea College, hooks previously taught African and Afro-American studies and English at Yale University, women’s studies and American literature at Oberlin College, and English at the City College of New York.
Related Resource:
- hooks’ memoir Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood was the July 2003 selection for bookclub@ket.
