Bell hooks: Race, Feminism, and Freedom

For much of its history, feminist theory centered on a particular vision of womanhood shaped almost exclusively by the experiences of white, middle-class women. As a Stanford undergraduate named Gloria Watkins noted, "When women are talked about, the focus tends to be on white women." In response, Watkins, writing under the pen name bell hooks, published Ain't I a Woman, a transformative text that fundamentally reshaped feminist theory and political practice. Hooks highlights the overlapping systems of oppression that have historically "socialized black women out of existence," proposing a conception of feminist politics that accounts for the ways sexism, racism, and class have jointly shaped and constrained female identity. Though her concepts of marginality, oppositional looking, and liberation have become foundational to contemporary feminism, they continue to provoke reconsideration of what feminist politics means, requires, and can accomplish. How does hooks' analysis challenge the assumption that women as a group share uniform experiences? What kind of feminist politics emerges when we recognize the interconnected nature of oppression?

This course surveys hooks' multifaceted contributions to feminist theory and her distinctive vision of feminist liberation across her most significant works, including Ain't I a Woman; Feminist Theory from Margin to Center; Talking Back; Black Looks; Where We Stand; Outlaw Culture; Real to Reel; Killing Rage; Yearning; and Teaching to Transgress. As we examine hooks' engagement with both historical and contemporary feminism, along with her far-ranging cultural criticism spanning multiple genres, we will consider these questions: How do intimate personal relationships contribute to and reinforce hooks' politics of resistance? How can someone develop an oppositional worldview and consciousness from positions of marginality? In what ways might the practice of loving be understood as revolutionary action? What is oppositional about the gaze and visual culture? How might the power to name be connected to articulating pleasure and desire? Hooks frequently uses the phrase "imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy" to characterize power relations in the U.S. What kind of call to action or invitation to reflection is embedded in this analysis? How does hooks apply a feminist lens to examine the oppressive structures that are created and maintained through systems of imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy?