A
Academia
flat discursive practices, 5–6
peer recognition, 6
practices of freedom, 5
racism, 6
Academic excellence, defined, 38
Academic space
Academy
radical people working collaboratively, 74–75
white supremacy, hooks’s insights, 71–74
Adult reader, children’s literature, 96–97
African societies, spirituality, 223
Agency, theory, 5
Ain’t I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism (bell hooks), 117–118
All About Love (bell hooks), 167
Ally creation, 4
American dream, 204
Art, children’s literature, 102–104
B
Back talk, 1
characterized, 1
Banking system of education, 43
Be Boy Buzz (bell hooks), 99–100
genesis, 99
theoretical foundations for title, 99
Becoming, 2
Belief in the ancestral, 223
Beloved (Toni Morrison), 180–182, 225
Bibliotherapy, 96
Black body, white academy, affirming presence, 72–73
Black communities
capitalist accumulation, 26–28
Christianity, 191
Black feminist consciousness, 116
Blackness
end of, 132
need for, 132
hooks’s ethical construction of, 141–143
postmodernism
hooks’s argument for relevance, 136–139
incommensurability, 134
specific relations between characteristics, 143–145
theorizing blackness as difference, 145–147
Black subjectivity, 7
Black voice, 6
Black women
public intellectual, 8
speech confined, 114
Black women commodified as other, 121–129
Bluest Eye (Toni Morrison), 168, 179–180
Body
concrete, historical, and lived context, 62–63
environments privilege certain types, 58–59
erasure, 55
marked by gender, 61
pathologization of “deviant” bodies, 58
philosophy, relationship, 37
shared cultural concept of normal, 62–63
Border crossing, 88
Borderlines, 17
Boyhood, lack of concentrated study of, 99–100
C
cause of absence of love, 219–221
Category mistake, 28
Category of Otherness, expert, 57
Centrisms, 188
as acts of resistance against patriarchal white culture, 99
blueprints for happy life in blackness, 95
origins of African American, 95–96
values, 95
Christianity
African American life, 191
interior life, 208
oppressive religious beliefs, 208
Claiming my space, 83
Class
lack of explanatory theory, 31
market-relations approach, 30
objective location within capitalist social structure, 28
unequal exchange of material resources, 30
Classroom
as harmonious place, 62
location of possibility, 34–35
Coded situation, 23
Codification, 23
Collective transformational possibilities, 34–35
Colonized mind, overturning, 73
Commodified otherness, 122–129
radical black subjectivity, 122
Communion (bell hooks), 167
Communities of accountability, 211–212
Community building, engaged pedagogy, 88–90
Confrontation, transformation, 55
Consciousness
racism, 37
transformation, 37
Consciousness of victimization, feminist consciousness, 115–116
Creating space, academy, 76–77
Critical feminist liberation theologies, 209
social transformation, 209–210
theology of the neighbor, 210–211
dialectical practice, 19
subversive academic spaces, 34–52
Critical race consciousness, 68–78
Critical subjectivity, 3
Critical thinking, 82
Culture of domination, 202
D
Decentering, 187
Deconstructing normalcy, 55–66
Deconstruction
origins of deconstruction as ethics, 134–136
Dialectics of change, 28
Dialogue, power of, 194
Disability studies, 58–60, 61–62
restrictive narrative, 62
Domestic violence, 221
E
Ecstasy, 3
Education
banking system of, 43
as practice of freedom, 50
traditional transfer of knowledge approach, 83–84
poststructuralist approach, 63–64
Emotion, race, 37
Engagement, 203
Essentialism, 60–61, 139–141, 159–161
liberatory possibilities, 189
social construction of race, 157–158
Ethics
Ethics of deconstruction, 132–153
Experience, power of, 65
Extra-academic engagement, 6
F
Fear, 42
Fearless speech, 42
grounded in religion, 210
negative connotations, 61
Feminist consciousness
black woman feminist consciousness, 116
consciousness of victimization, 115–116
power of, 22
transformation, 22
Feminist thinking, settings, 6–7
Feminist traditions of struggle, 29
Figure/ground perceptual organization, 44
Film, critical dialogue, 44–45
Fire Next Time (James Baldwin), 168, 177–178
Foregrounding, 187
Foundations
postmodernism, 188
Frames of reference, 69
critique of sexist language, 42–43
G
Gender, 48
liberatory possibilities, 189
H
Happy to be Nappy (bell hooks), 97–99
genesis, 98
Harnecker, Marta, 31
Hearts, opening of, 35
Hegemonic practices, challenge, 8
Heterogeneity, 187
Homemade Love (bell hooks), 100–101
Honesty, 42
Hope
as weapon, 91
Horatio Alger myth, 204
Humanization, 20
I
Ideas, transformative dimensions, 40–41
poststructuralist approach, 63–64
purported singularity, 47
Identity categories, absolutist or definitive renderings, 60–61
Imperative of liberation, 132–153
Interior life
Christianity, 208
oppressive religious beliefs, 208
In the Beginning Was Love: Psychoanalysis and Faith (Julia Kristeva), 191
K
Killing Rage, Ending Racism (bell hooks), 191–192
Kristeva, Julia
critiques of metanarratives and totalizing systems, 188
cultural displacement, 186–187
maternity, 193
metaphor, 193
postmodernity, crises of love, 196
psychoanalysis, 193
relation between ethics and politics, 194
religious faith, 193
L
Learning, nature of, 35
Liberated voice, 3
Liberation, 202
Liberation movements
spiritual component, 206
Liberation theologies, 208–209
Liberatory discourse, critique of sexist language, 42–43
Liberatory education, 40
Lived context, 1
Locus of representation, 51
African American literature, 218
conceptions of, 186
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s perspective, 168–169
ethically and politically necessary, 191–192
otherness, 194
parameters of hooks’s conception, 168
patriarchal popular culture, 167
power of, 194
roots of hooks’s special interest, 219–226
salvational effects, 168
self-determination, 170
spiritual maturation process, 170
uses of, 178
Love (Toni Morrison), 218
characterized, 206
religions, 207
spiritual work, 206
transformative potential, 206, 207
M
commodified otherness, 121–127
sites, 7
space of radical openness, 56
Marginalized other, radical black subject, move between, 121-129
Marked body, resignifying, 55–66
Marrow of Tradition (Charles Chesnutt), 168, 170–176
Maternity, Kristeva, Julia, 193
Meritocracy, 49
Metanarratives, rejection, 133
Metaphor, Kristeva, Julia, 193
Misanthropy, 50
Mother, 221
Multivocality, 6
N
Naming, 1
characterized, 4
perception, 4
Narrative, self-actualization, 86–88
Native Americans, 4
Native informant, 57
Nihilism, 224
Nonunity, 187
Norms, power, 204
O
Ontological difference, 2
Opportunity, 204
Oppositional discourse, 24
oppressed/oppressor relationship, 19–22
privileging cultural forms, 27
Otherness
love, 194
as relational and contextual, 194–195
P
Parrhesia, 42
Patriarchal popular culture, love, 167
cause of absence of love, 219–221
pyramid of multiplicative oppressions, 203–204
Pedagogy, mutually engaged, 40
People with disabilities, 58–60, 61, 62
Perception, naming, 4
Personal story, 87
Perspective transformation, 84
Phenomenology
ruse of pure consciousness, 112
Philosophy, 49
body, relationship, 37
voice, 118
Political resistance, love, 167–182
Politics
Politics of difference, 71
Polyvocality, 6
hooks’s argument for relevance, 136–139
hooks’s retheorizing of, 132–153
incommensurability, 134
specific relations between characteristics, 143–145
theorizing blackness as difference, 145–147
conception, 133
foundations, 188
Kristeva, Julia, crises of love, 196
postmodernist theory defined, 133
problems with, 71
responsibility for the other, 133
Poststructuralism, characterized, 187
Power
norms, 204
understanding, 203
values, 204
Practices of freedom, academia, 5
Prisoners, 6
Private spaces, 22
Privileged position from nowhere, 5
Problem-posing education, 46–47
Psychoanalysis, 191
Kristeva, Julia, 193
Public intellectual
black women, 8
sexism, 8
R
Race
emotion, 37
reality of, 157
reason, 37
as specter, 156
Race-based traditions of struggle, 29
Race Matters (Cornel West), 196
Racial inequality, 30
Racialism, 101
academia, 6
consciousness, 37
etched into, 38
reinscribe status quo, 51
Racist narrative, 49
Radical black subjectivity, 127–129
marginalized other, move between, 121-129
Radical postmodernist practice, 71
Reason, race, 37
Reclamation, 23
Reconstituted identity, 4
Relative absolute values, 196
Religion
interior life, 208
oppressive religious beliefs, 208
love ethic, 207
religious faith, Kristeva, Julia, 193
Renaming, 1
characterized, 4
Resistance, marginal sites, 23–24
Reversal, 44
Revolutionary blackness, 156–163, 161–163
Revolutionary critical pedagogy, 31
Revolutionary interdependence, 202–214
goal of theoretical work, 205
S
Salvation (bell hooks), 167
Segregation, 2
Self-actualization, 84
Self-censorship, 6
Self-definition, women of color, 123
Self-determination, love, 170
Self-flourishing, theory, 5
Self-portraits, 17
Self-recovery, 23
deployment of theory, 3
Servant-served, rejecting paradigm, 72
Settings
Sexism, public intellectual, 8
Silence, 115
black women commodified as other, 121–129
extrafamilial forces, 2
Silenced, 2
marginality, 7
Skin Again (bell hooks), 101–102
Skin color, 101
Social behaviors, whiteness, 46
Social construction of race, essentialism, 157–158
Socialism, 29
Socialization, 82
Social reality, structural features, 114–115
Social transformation
critical feminist liberation theologies, 209–210
Space
created, 28
creating and using, 51
of radical openness, margin, 56
theorizing, 3
Speaking, 5
Spiritual crisis, 100
Spiritual growth, love, 221–222
African societies, 223
roots of hooks’s special interest, 219–226
social transformation, 209–210
Stigmatization, 58
Students, demographics, 56
Subjectivity
liberatory possibilities, 189
reimagining, 195
T
Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black (bell hooks), 111
Teacher educator, 83
nontraditional academics, 85–86
role of professor, 85
sustaining themselves and their work, 82–93
transformative curriculum, 89–90
Teachers
epistemic autocrats, 39
as healers, 36
self-actualized, 36
Theorizing, space, 3
Theory
agency, 5
deployment of, 3
location for healing, 5
not reduced to emotive, 5
production, 3
radically different understanding, 3
self-flourishing, 5
uses, 3
Thurmond, Strom, 121
confrontation, 55
consciousness, 37
critical feminist liberation theology, 210–212
feminist praxis, 22
Transformative curriculum, teacher educators, 89–90
U
Unhomeliness, 64
Universal subjectivity, 49, 157
V
Values
children’s literature, 95
power, 204
Visionary feminism, 100
Voices, 1
multiple, 6
philosophy, 118
W
Warrior artist, 17
Washington-Williams, Essie May, 121
West, Cornel, 189–190, 191, 195, 196, 219, 224
Western religious traditions, 190–191
White academy, black body, affirming presence, 72–73
Whiteness
refusal to explore, 50
refusal to ignore, 50
social behaviors, 46
transcendental norm, 51
White philosophers, 50
defined, 47
responsibility, 47
White supremacist capitalist patriarchy, 202, 203
“me-me” mentality, 207
academy, hooks’s insights, 71–74
Women of color, self-definition, 123
Writing, 5
difficulty of, 111
Z