I find it particularly interesting that it is hard to find critiques on bell hooks. I have been searching in agony for authors engaging with her works as critiques but instead I stumble with some form of glorification - academically speaking. One cannot deny that hooks work is by far radical in that it centralizes issues that have been pushed to the periphery in a world constituted by postmodernity.
Ralph Dumain (a Librian, Archivist, Information Specialist Researcher, Scholar) partially engages on bell hooks work on a critique bases. Firstly he devulges on his critique on the perspective that hooks belongs to the left wing - never respecting peoples intellectuality or the totality of their social beings. He states that hooks work may serve as an example of the problem in issues such as: the relations between intellectual work, popular education and political movements. Though he admits that there are only a few instances where hooks says something 'stupid' but finds that some of her arguments are supremely naive.
Much can be said about the lack of criticism on bell hooks - of which two questions arise:
1. is the media delibarately ignoring her work to force her out of the dialogue and vocality?
2. is there a constructive bases on which her work can be criticised?
About Me
- nextmovement
- bell hooks (Gloria Jean Watkins) was born September 25, 1952 in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. She is from a working class family with five sisters and one brother. She graduated from Hopkinsville High School, Kentuchy, earned her B.A in English from Stanford University in 1973 and her M.A in English from University of Wisconcin-Madison in 1976. After several years of teaching and writing, in 1983 she completed her doctorate in literature department from University of California, Santa Cruz with a dissertation on author Toni Morrison. She gained widespread recognition as an influential contributor to postmodern feminist thought decades after the publication of “Ain’t I a Woman?’. In 1980-85 she was an assistant professor of Afro-American studies and English at Yale University, New Haven, CT. In 1986 she became associate professor of English at Oberlin College until 1994. She was City College of New York professor, then distinguished professor of English from 1995 – 2004. Early 2004 she became distinguished professor-in-residence at Berea College, Berea, KY. She is a social critic, educator, writer and co-founder of Hambone literary magazine.
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I was surprised to see your reference to my review We Real Kitsch: bell hooks on the Black Malehttp://www.autodidactproject.org/my/bellhooks1.html
ReplyDeleteI do not purport to criticize her entire corpus, but just this one book. I attempted to pinpoint a false note in her approach: "I think it lies in the way she appeals to identity in opposing this ["white supremacist capitalist patriarchy"]. Blacks are cast as victims deluded into imitating the values of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, as if they essentially belong to some other agenda they were hijacked from. From here I attempt to analyze why her approach and specific assertions bother me. Practically speaking, the appeal to identities--racial, feminist, activist--may be a useful marketing tool to reach a target audience, but it ultimately reinforces the same racial provincialism that perpetuates outmoded modes of behavior.