bell hooks: A Revolutionary Feminist Remembered

bell hooks, born Gloria Jean Watkins in 1952 in a segregated Southern U.S. town, died in December 2021. She used lowercase initials to decenter herself and focus attention on her ideas. A prolific feminist, she is credited with bringing intersectionality into identity debates beyond academia. Several of her books are being published or republished in Italy, including 'La volontà di cambiare' (Il Saggiatore), 'Insegnare a trasgredire' and 'Insegnare comunità' (Meltemi, September 9), and 'Il femminismo è per tutti' (Tamu). Art historian and critic Elvira Vannini, a professor at NABA Milan and founder of hotpotatoes magazine, discusses hooks's legacy. hooks argued that feminisms interrogate patriarchal structures oppressing women but rarely examine how these structures affect men. Her focus on masculinity marked a shift in gender studies. She emphasized the simultaneity of oppressions, refusing to choose between anti-racist and transfeminist struggles. hooks saw teaching as a political act for liberation, not subservience. She defined herself as 'queer-pas-gay,' resisting identity taxonomies. In 'Art on My Mind,' she criticized the white elite monopolizing the art world. Vannini notes that while representation of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ artists increases, social hierarchies remain. hooks believed in art and cinema's potential to open liberatory imaginaries, though Vannini is less optimistic, viewing the art system as complicit with neoliberalism.