The Literary Power of bell hooks

Paper Summary:

This paper explores the life and literary contributions of prolific African-American writer, scholar, and activist bell hooks. The paper provides an overview of her life and work, noting that scholars and laymen alike find hooks fascinating and engaging, and her theories indicative of a modern translation of wisdom and vision regarding some of the most pressing social issues of the modern world. The paper opines that hooks' most astounding character trait is her ability to see contradictions in social and public policy and propose solutions and standards to address such contradictions. hooks also, the paper explains, offers wisdom on the development of theory and practical criticism of a broad variety of knowledge-based ideals, including feminism, racism, education, poverty, and many other social and political controversies. The paper concludes that Hooks demonstrates significant knowledge of application of ideas that many authors would not even attempt to assimilate into his or her world view.

From the Paper:

"hooks is a prolific writer whose works are as varied as her life. A text that I found particularly telling of her wisdom is her work Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (1994). In this work, one sees the synthesis of many years as a thinker and educator, integrating many of her works into a pedagogy of education that better serves a multi-cultural society. Two other memorable works that are indicative of hooks' development as a writer and a purveyor of wisdom are Killing Rage: Ending Racism (1995) and Where We Stand: Class Matters (2000), both of which challenge traditional conceptions of race, culture and class and attempt to develop ideals that further the thoughts and actions of human kind. These four works are really only the tip of the iceberg, with regard to hooks' works as she crosses genre, working on prose and poetry, theory, non-fiction, fiction, lecture tours and even more modern media assimilations of recorded interviews and films. hooks, is noted as one of the most important intellectuals of our day."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Baltes, P. B., & Staudinger, U. M. (2000). Wisdom: A Metaheuristic (pragmatic) to Orchestrate Mind and Virtue Toward Excellence. American Psychologist, 55 (1), 122-136.
• Brown, W. editor (2002) Understanding Wisdom: Sources Science, and Society West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Foundation Press
• Carney Smith, J. & Phelps, S. (1996) Notable Black American Women Book II. Detroit, MI: Gale Research Inc.
• Hooks, B. (2000). Where We Stand: Class Matters. New York: Routledge.
• Hooks, B. (2004). We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity. New York: Routledge.

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