Bell hooks

Relevant Work
 Pages
(NATC, 3rd ed.)

## Biography

* Gloria Jean Watkins was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky in 1952.
* She was born into a rural black working-class family and suffered a turbulent childhood finding inspiration through books and solace in imagination.
* To honor her outspoken great-grandmother's legacy, Watkins took the name of "bell hooks."
* In 1976, hooks received a B.A. from Stanford University, an M.A. from the University of Wisconsin in 1976, and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1983.
* From 2004 until now, she has been a distinguished professor at Berea College in Kentucky.

## "*Postmodern Blackness*" (1990)

### **Background and Historical Context**

In this essay, bell hooks explores the lack of interest African American intellectuals have with postmodernism. She believes that the abstract philosophical discourse of postmodernism is dominated by white male intellectuals and that the academic elites, including African-American academics, are oblivious to the concerns of black people. hooks discusses issues of identity as they intersect with postmodernist thinking, most notably the notion of "*essential blackness*" which characterizes all experiences of African Americans into one universal experience.

### **Key Words and Terms**

**Essentialism** - The belief that things have a set of intrinsic characteristics that make them what they are. bell hooks speak in "critique of essentialism," using this phrase several times throughout the text and most prominently on page 2322, in which she says: "Postmodern critiques of essentialism which challenge notions of universality and static over-determined identity within mass culture and mass consciousness can open up new possibilities for the construction of self and the assertion of agency."

**Black experience** - white intellectuals write about black experiences as subjects of white narratives

**Essential blackness** - racist stereotype that bell hooks criticizes as a form of 'authentic black identity', an identity that refuses to recognize the multiplicities of black experiences that ground 'diverse cultural productions' (2318).

**Master narratives** - major themes (myths) involving literacy experiences. One major narrative is literacy success--conforming to literacy standards established by institutions.

**Otherness** - stereotyping is a pejorative act, stressing instead that the act of stereotyping and creating “otherness” is in part done to preserve and define one's own identity in relation to the identity of others

### **Key Quotations**

"Postmodernist discourses are often exclusionary even as they call attention to, appropriate even, the experience of 'difference' and 'Otherness' to provide oppositional political meaning, legitimacy, and immediacy when they are accused of lacking concrete relevance" (2318).

"...racism is perpetuated when blackness is associated solely with concrete gut level experience conceived as either opposing or having no connection to abstract thinking and the production of critical theory" (2318).

"The idea that there is no meaningful connection between black experience and critical thinking about aesthetics or culture must be continually interrogated" (2318-2319).

"Postmodern theory that is not seeking to simply appropriate the experience of 'Otherness' to enhance the discourse or to be radically chic should not separate the 'politics of difference' from the politics of racism" (2321).

"Postmodern critiques of essentialism which challenge notions of universality and static over-determined identity within mass culture and mass consciousness can open up new possibilities for the construction of self and the assertion of agency" (2322).

"Theoretical ideas and critical thinking need not be transmitted solely in written work or solely in the academy" (2324).

"Postmodern culture with its decentered subject can be the space where ties are severed or it can provide the occasion for new and varied forms of bonding" (2324).

### **Discussion**

#### Postmodernism

In the text, hooks is questioning African Americans in their interest in "postmodern theory." She applies this label to philosophic critique of modernity that celebrates difference and otherness, advocates radical liberation and political equality, finds fault with rigid concepts of identity, and criticizes master narratives. hooks believes that the abstract philosophical discourse of postmodernism - as defined by various French theorists - is dominated by white male intellectuals. She argues that despite its invocation of "difference," postmodernism is exclusionary. Expounding this idea, she goes on to say that even though postmodernism uses notions of difference and marginality to legitimate itself in the face of accusations of irrelevance, it seems to fall short in engaging experiences or writings of a truly marginalized people group like black women.

#### Authority of Experience

hooks is "suspicious that the postmodern call to dismantle identity comes at a historical moment when subjugated peoples are beginning to assert their own identity and to act collectively in its name" (NATC 2318). As marginalized communities begin to speak up, it seems that white intellectuals want to do away with labels. These elites write about the black experience as subjects to white narratives. It is ironic that these white intellectuals write about diversity by using white/colonial language to separate and exclude. hooks stresses "authority of experience" (2318) to allow blacks and African Americans contribute to the black experience. hooks herself begin with an anecdote with this essay.

### **Discussion Questions**

1. What seems to be bell hook's definition of postmodernist? In what ways can the practices of postmodernism be alienating for black people?
2. What has been wrong with many previous postmodern approaches to issues of identity in her view?
3. How can a postmodernist critique of essentialism aid African-Americans in their struggle for recognition?
4. What will bind black people together and aid in forming a common identity?
5. Do you see parallels between hooks's views and those of any non-black authors we have read?

### **Major Criticism and Reception**

According to the NATC, bell hooks treats postmodernism as a "single set of monologic discourses that mean the same thing to everyone" instead of a historical period in literary theory. In other words, hooks does not recognize postmodern theory as a diverse set of beliefs, practices, and texts (2318).

## **Related Works**

* *Black Looks: Race and Representation* by bell hooks
* *Killing Rage: Ending Racism* by bell hooks
* *Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black* by bell hooks
* *Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom* by bell hooks
* *Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life* by bell hooks (with Cornel West)

## References

Leitch, Vincent B., editor. *The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism*. 3rd ed., W.W. Norton & Co., 2018.