UKY AAS
Born Gloria Jean Watkins on September 25, 1952, bell hooks was raised among six other children in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. As a child, she was an avid reader, becoming particularly interested in poetry at a young age. In fact, "some of her poems were published in a Sunday school magazine" (European Post Graduate School). After graduating at the racially segregated Hopkinsville High School, she attended Stanford University where she studied English. bell hooks would eventually be awarded an M.A. in English from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She was then hired as a senior lecturer and professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Southern California.
Her use of a separate name in her writings is intended to honor her grandmother and mother. She uses lower case letters in an attempt to emphasize the text of her work rather than herself as an author (University of Minnesota).
-- Holmes Hampton
Her use of a separate name in her writings is intended to honor her grandmother and mother. She uses lower case letters in an attempt to emphasize the text of her work rather than herself as an author (University of Minnesota).
-- Holmes Hampton