Hooks may refer to:

Surnames

• bell hooks, American author, feminist, and social activist
• Benjamin Hooks, American civil rights leader
• Brian Hooks, American actor, writer, and director
• Charles Hooks (1768 - 1843) was a United States Representative from North Carolina
• George Hooks, Democratic member of the Georgia Senate
• Jan Hooks, American actress and comedian
• Kevin Hooks, American actor and film director
• Lonna Hooks, the former Secretary of State of New Jersey
• Mitchell Hooks, American artist and illustrator
• Robert Hooks, American actor
• Valerie Brisco-Hooks, Olympic track and field athlete

Fictional characters

• Laverne Hooks, of Police Academy

Sports franchises

• The Corpus Christi Hooks, a Minor League team playing in the Texas League.

Other

• Hooks, Texas
• Hooks (grappling) Grappling term for the use of feet and legs to control an opponent.

See also[link]

• Hook (disambiguation)
• Hooke (disambiguation)
• Hooke's law

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

bell hooks
Born	Gloria Jean Watkins (1952-09-25) September 25, 1952 (age 59) Hopkinsville, Kentucky, USA
Pen name	bell hooks
Occupation	Author, social activist
Notable work(s)	Ain’t I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism All About Love: New Visions We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center
Influences Sojourner Truth, Paulo Freire, Gustavo Gutiérrez, Erich Fromm, Lorraine Hansberry, Thich Nhat Hanh, James Baldwin, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr.

Gloria Jean Watkins (born September 25, 1952), better known by her pen name bell hooks (intentionally uncapitalized),^[1][2] is an American author, feminist, and social activist. She took her nom de plume from her maternal great-grandmother Bell Blair Hooks.^[3]

Her writing has focused on the interconnectivity of race, capitalism, and gender and what she describes as their ability to produce and perpetuate systems of oppression and class domination. She has published over thirty books and numerous scholarly and mainstream articles, appeared in several documentary films and participated in various public lectures. Primarily through a postmodern perspective, hooks has addressed race, class, and gender in education, art, history, sexuality, mass media and feminism.

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Gloria Jean Watkins was born on September 25, 1952 in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. She grew up in a working class family with five sisters and one brother. Her father, Veodis Watkins, was a custodian and her mother, Rosa Bell Watkins, was a homemaker. Throughout her childhood, she was an avid reader.

Her early education took place in racially segregated public schools, and she wrote of great adversities when making the transition to an integrated school, where teachers and students were predominantly white. She graduated from Hopkinsville High School in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, earned her B.A. in English from Stanford University in 1973, and earned her M.A. in English from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1976. In 1983, after several years of teaching and writing, she completed her doctorate in the literature department from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a dissertation on author Toni Morrison. She also taught at Yale.

Career[link]

Her teaching career began in 1976 as an English professor and senior lecturer in Ethnic Studies at the University of Southern California. During her three years there, Golemics (Los Angeles) released her first published work, a chapbook of poems titled "And There We Wept" (1978), written under her pen name, "bell hooks". She adopted her grandmother's name as her pen name because her grandmother "was known for her snappy and bold tongue, which [she] greatly admired." She put the name in lowercase letters "to distinguish [herself] from her grandmother." Her name's unconventional lowercasing signifies what is most important in her works: the "substance of books, not who I am."^[4]

She taught at several post-secondary institutions in the early 1980s, including the University of California, Santa Cruz and San Francisco State University. South End Press (Boston) published her first major work, Ain’t I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism in 1981, though it was written years earlier, while she was an undergraduate student.^[5] In the decades since its publication, Ain't I a Woman? has gained widespread recognition as an influential contribution to postmodern feminist thought.^[6]

Ain’t I a Woman? examines several recurring themes in her later work: the historical impact of sexism and racism on black women, devaluation of black womanhood, media roles and portrayal, the education system, the idea of a white-supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy, the marginalization of black women, and the disregard for issues of race and class within feminism.

Since the publication of Ain’t I a Woman?, she has become eminent as a leftist and postmodern political thinker and cultural critic. She targets and appeals to a broad audience by presenting her work in a variety of media using various writing and speaking styles. As well as having written books, she has published in numerous scholarly and mainstream magazines, lectures at widely accessible venues, and appears in various documentaries.

She is frequently cited by feminists^[who?] as having provided the best solution to the difficulty of defining something as diverse as "feminism", addressing the problem that if feminism can mean everything, it means nothing. She asserts an answer to the question "what is feminism?" that she says is "rooted in neither fear nor fantasy... 'Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation and oppression'".^[7]

She has published more than 30 books, ranging in topics from black men, patriarchy and masculinity to self-help, engaged pedagogy to personal memoirs, and sexuality (in regards to feminism and politics of aesthetic/visual culture). A prevalent theme in her most recent writing is the community and communion, the ability of loving communities to overcome race, class, and gender inequalities. In three conventional books and four children's books, she suggests that communication and literacy (the ability to read, write, and think critically) are crucial to developing healthy communities and relationships that are not marred by race, class, or gender inequalities.

She has held positions as Professor of African and African-American Studies and English at Yale University, Associate Professor of Women’s Studies and American Literature at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, and as Distinguished Lecturer of English Literature at the City College of New York.

A commencement speech hooks gave in 2002 at Southwestern University was considered controversial. Eschewing the congratulatory mode of traditional commencement speeches, she spoke against what she saw as government-sanctioned violence and oppression, and admonished students who she believed went along with such practices. Many in the audience booed the speech, though "several graduates passed over the provost to shake her hand or give her a hug."^[8]

In 2004 she joined forces with Berea College in Berea, Kentucky as Distinguished Professor in Residence,^[9] where she participated in a weekly feminist discussion group, "Monday Night Feminism", a luncheon lecture series, "Peanut Butter and Gender" and a seminar, "Building Beloved Community: The Practice of Impartial Love".

Her most recent book is entitled belonging: a culture of place, which includes a very candid interview with author Wendell Berry as well as a discussion of her move back to Kentucky.

Influences[link]

Writers who have influenced hooks include African-American abolitionist and feminist Sojourner Truth (whose speech Ain't I a Woman? inspired her first major work), Brazilian educator Paulo Freire (whose perspectives on education she embraces in her theory of engaged pedagogy), Peruvian theologian and Dominican priest Gustavo Gutierrez, psychologist Erich Fromm, playwright Lorraine Hansberry, Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, African-American writer James Baldwin, Guyanese historian Walter Rodney, African-American black nationalist leader Malcolm X, and African-American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr (who addresses how the strength of love unites communities).^[10][11]

Teaching to Transgress[link]

In her book Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, hooks investigated the classroom as a source of constraint but also a potential source of liberation. She argued that teachers' use of control and power over students dulls the students' enthusiasm and teaches obedience to authority, "confin[ing] each pupil to a rote, assembly-line approach to learning.”^[12] She advocated that universities encourage students and teachers to transgress, and sought ways to use collaboration to make learning more relaxing and exciting. She described teaching as “a catalyst that calls everyone to become more and more engaged”.^[13]

Criticism[link]

She has attracted a measure of criticism, often from conservative writers. Peter Schweizer has accused her of hypocrisy in sexual politics.^[14] Writer David Horowitz has specifically objected to a passage in the first chapter of Killing Rage,^[15] in which hooks states that she is "sitting beside an anonymous white male that [she] long[s] to murder" because he was complicit in a boarding pass misunderstanding that resulted in the harassment of her black, female friend.^[16] Of these kind of "irrational, violent impulses," hooks states, "My irrational impulse to want to kill people who bore me or whose ideas are not very complex clearly has to do with an exaggerated response to situations where I feel powerless."^[17]

Awards and nominations[link]

• Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics: The American Book Awards/ Before Columbus Foundation Award (1991)
• Ain’t I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism: "One of the twenty most influential women’s books in the last 20 years" by Publishers Weekly (1992)
• bell hooks: The Writer’s Award from the Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Fund (1994)
• Happy to Be Nappy: NAACP Image Award nominee (2001)
• Homemade Love: The Bank Street College Children's Book of the Year (2002)
• Salvation: Black People and Love: Hurston Wright Legacy Award nominee (2002)
• bell hooks: Utne Reader's "100 Visionaries Who Could Change Your Life"
• bell hooks: The Atlantic Monthly's "One of our nation’s leading public intellectuals"

Select bibliography[link]

• Ain’t I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism (1981) ISBN 0-89608-129-X
• All About Love: New Visions (2000) ISBN 0-06-095947-9
• And There We Wept: Poems. (1978). OCLC 6230231. 
• Art on My Mind: Visual Politics (1995) ISBN 1-56584-263-4
• Be Boy Buzz (2002) ISBN 0-7868-0814-4
• Black Looks: Race and Representation (1992) ISBN 0-89608-433-7
• Bone Black: memories of girlhood (1996) ISBN 0-8050-5512-6
• Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life (1991) (with Cornel West) ISBN 0-89608-414-0
• Communion: The Female Search for Love (2002) ISBN 0-06-093829-3
• Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics (2000) ISBN 0-89608-629-1
• Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (1984) ISBN 0-89608-614-3
• Grump Groan Growl (2008) ISBN 0-7868-0816-0
• Happy to be Nappy (1999) ISBN 0-7868-0427-0
• Homemade Love (2002) ISBN 0-7868-0643-5
• Justice: Childhood Love Lessons (2000). ISBN 0-688-16844-2. OCLC 41606283. 
• Killing Rage: Ending Racism (1995) ISBN 0-8050-5027-2
• Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations (1994) ISBN 0-415-90811-6
• Reel to Real: Race, Sex, and Class at the Movies (1996) . ISBN 0-415-91823-5. OCLC 35229108. 
• Remembered Rapture: The Writer at Work (1999) ISBN 0-8050-5910-5
• Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-esteem (2003) ISBN 0-7434-5605-X
• Salvation: Black People and Love (2001) ISBN 0-06-095949-5
• Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-recovery (1993) ISBN 1-896357-99-7
• Skin Again (2004) ISBN 0-7868-0825-X
• Soul Sister: Women, Friendship, and Fulfillment (2005) ISBN 0-89608-735-2
• Space (2004) ISBN 0-415-96816-X
• Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black (1989) ISBN 0-921284-09-8
• Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope (2003) ISBN 0-415-96817-8
• Teaching to Transgress: Education As the Practice of Freedom (1994) ISBN 0-415-90808-6
• We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity (2004) ISBN 0-415-96926-3
• Where We Stand: Class Matters (2000) ISBN 978-0-415-92913-4
• The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love (2003) ISBN 0-7434-5607-6
• Witness (2006) ISBN 0-89608-759-X
• Wounds of Passion: A Writing Life (1997) ISBN 0-8050-5722-6
• Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics (1990) ISBN 0-921284-34-9
• ″Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom‘’ (2010) ISBN 09780415968201

Film appearances[link]

• Black Is... Black Ain't (1994)
• Give a Damn Again (1995)
• Cultural Criticism and Transformation (1997)
• My Feminism (1997)
• I Am a Man: Black Masculinity in America (2004)
• Voices of Power (1999)
• Baadasssss Cinema (2002)
• Writing About a Revolution: A Talk (2004)
• Happy to Be Nappy and Other Stories of Me (2004)
• Is Feminism Dead? (2004)

Further reading[link]

• Florence, Namulundah. bell hooks's Engaged Pedagogy. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, 1998. ISBN 0-89789-564-9 . OCLC 38239473. 
• Leitch et al., eds. "bell hooks." The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001. pages 2475–2484. ISBN 0-393-97429-4 . OCLC 45023141. 
• South End Press Collective, eds. "Critical Consciousness for Political Resistance"Talking About a Revolution.Cambridge: South End Press, 1998. 39–52. ISBN 0-89608-587-2 . OCLC 38566253. 
• Stanley, Sandra Kumamoto, ed. Other Sisterhoods: Literary Theory and U.S. Women of Color. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1998. ISBN 0-252-02361-7 . OCLC 36446785. 
• Wallace, Michelle. Black Popular Culture. New York: The New Press, 1998. ISBN 1-56584-459-9 . OCLC 40548914. 
• Whitson, Kathy J. (2004). Encyclopedia of Feminist Literature. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-32731-9. OCLC 54529420. 

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: bell hooks

• allaboutbellhooks.com (A site dedicated to the revolutionary activist & healer bell hooks)
• Ejournal website (several critical resources for bell hooks)
• Real Change News (interview with hooks by Rosette Royale)
• bell hooks articles published in Shambhala Sun Magazine
• South End Press (books by hooks published by South End Press)
• University of California, Santa Barbara (biographical sketch of hooks)
• "Postmodern Blackness" (article by hooks)
• Whole Terrain (articles by hooks published in Whole Terrain)
• Challenging Capitalism & Patriarchy (interviews with hooks by Third World Viewpoint)
• Ingredients of Love (an interview with ascent magazine)
• bell hooks at the Internet Movie Database
• Booknotes interview with hooks on Killing Rage: Ending Racism, November 19, 1995.
• In Depth interview with hooks, May 5, 2002

Sean Price (born March 17, 1972)^[1] is an American rapper and member of the hip hop supergroups Boot Camp Clik and Random Axe. He came to fame as one-half of the duo Heltah Skeltah, performing under the name Ruckus, or in short Ruck, along with partner Rock. He also is featured in the video game NBA 2K11 as a playable character in street mode. Price lives in Brownsville, Brooklyn.^[2]

In 2011, Sean Price was a judge on the Ultimate MC TV show alongside with Royce da 5'9", Organik, Planet Asia, and Pharoahe Monch.^[3]

Discography[link]

Solo albums[link]

Collaboration albums[link]

Singles[link]

Official mixtapes[link]

• Donkey Sean Jr. (2004)
• Master P (2007)
• Kimbo Price (2009)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Duck Down Records website

Galen Hooks (born November 19, 1985) is an American choreographer, dancer, actress, songwriter, and photographer. She entered the entertainment business at age seven after her dance group won Star Search.^[1] She has worked with Janet Jackson, Justin Bieber, Britney Spears, Chris Brown, Rihanna, Miley Cyrus, Ne-yo, and Usher.^[2] Galen is best known for being one of Janet Jackson's dancers, for her Nike campaigns, for being a dancer and choreographer for The LXD (The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers),^[3] and for playing Diamond Eye and Pretti Sinclair in recording artist Ne-Yo's "Beautiful Monster", "Champagne Life", and "One in a Million" music videos.^[4] She was also the associate co-choreographer for the international tour of Dreamgirls and its run at the Apollo Theater in New York.^[5]

Hooks is currently the head choreographer for the hit Nickelodeon show "How To Rock" starring Cymphonique Miller.

She is also the consulting producer and host of the upcoming DS2DIO show "Masterclass" where she interviews top choreographers like Fatima Robinson, Brian Friedman, Wade Robson, Travis Payne and more.

Life[link]

Hooks was a songwriter on recording artist Raistalla's self-titled album. Galen wrote "Krazy" and co-wrote "Attention" and "Speedracer".^[6] As a photographer, she has taken pictures of Melinda Sullivan from So You Think You Can Dance and Lindsey Blaufarb from Beat Freaks who appeared on the third season of America's Best Dance Crew.^[7]

Hooks attended Pennsylvania State University while traveling the world as a professional dancer and graduated with a BA in Pre Law.^[8]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• IMDB Galen Hooks