Queer Black Feminist Author bell hooks Dies Aged 69

Queer black intersectional feminist author bell hooks has died at the age of 69.

She wrote over 30 books on a variety of topics including sexuality, masculinity, race, feminism, and even some children’s books. Some of her most notable works include Ain’t I a Woman?, The Will to Change, and Feminism is for Everybody.

She had once described her sexuality as “queer-pas-gay”.

Honouring Female Ancestors

Born Gloria Jean Watkins, she wrote under the pen name, bell hooks, which was her maternal great grandmother’s name.

She explained this in an interview, saying, “Many of us took the names of our female ancestors—bell hooks is my maternal great grandmother—to honor them and debunk the notion that we were these unique, exceptional women. We wanted to say, actually, we were the products of the women who’d gone before us.”

hooks wrote her name in lowercase letters in order to keep the focus on her ideas.

Dr Karla Elliott, Lecturer in Sociology at Monash University, tweeted, “bell hooks is so central to my work, thinking, and the way I live my life. She had so much to tell us about men, masculinity and the revolutionary potential of solidarity in the margins.”

bell hooks is so central to my work, thinking, and the way I live my life. She had so much to tell us about men, masculinity and the revolutionary potential of solidarity in the margins. Some of my favourites to remember her by: https://t.co/WuhWpHMpHbhttps://t.co/4XSujcwthJ

— Dr Karla Elliott (@Karla_Elliott) December 16, 2021

Melbourne-based queer writer and philosopher Joshua Badge tweeted, “hooks asked us to imagine a world without domination, may we all live to see the world of which she writes, vale!”

“Queer as not about who you’re having sex with […] Queer as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it and has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.”

— bell hooks

— hiero badge | !الانتفاضة الآن 🇵🇸 (@hierobadge) December 16, 2021

‘Rare Rock Star Of A Public Intellectual’

Curtin University’s Centre for Human Rights Education tweeted, “The world has lost a most extraordinary writer, thinker, activist & educator. bell hooks’ understanding of love, belonging & intersectionality – & her deep and radical approach to race, gender, sexuality, colonialism & capitalism gave us strength & compassion in thought & action.”

the world has lost a most extraordinary writer, thinker, activist & educator. bell hooks' understanding of love, belonging & intersectionality – & her deep and radical approach to race, gender, sexuality, colonialism & capitalism gave us strength & compassion in thought & action. pic.twitter.com/pH66hO88SD

— Centre for Human Rights Education @ Curtin Uni (@CurtinCHRE) December 16, 2021

Born in the American South in 1952, at a time when schools and society were racially segregated, hooks went on to attend Stanford University and received her doctorate in English at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Time magazine called her a “rare rock star of a public intellectual who reaches wide by being accessible.”