Finding Sanctuary with bell hooks Black Feminist Killjoy, Visionary Critical Theorist
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Abstract
I pay tribute to bell hooks in this essay by reflecting on the multiple provocations she offers to
me and my feminist philosophy students: on revolutionary vs. reform feminism; the need for
self-love and healing in the quest for social transformation; and deeply entrenched racist and
sexist barriers to multiracial feminist coalition building. I consider hooks’s position, within
academic spaces, as a Black Feminist killjoy who distinctively rejects respectability while
offering sanctuary to those, like me, who come to theory from a place of pain. I conclude by
raising questions about hooks’s approach to the relationship between theory and praxis,
arguing that she envisions a radical critical praxis theory while acknowledging that there may
have been some limits on her “revolutionary” love.
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