IN CONVERSATION AT THE CASSANDRA VOSS CENTER
Inaugural Resident Scholar, The Cassandra Voss Center
bell hooks
WHO IS BELL HOOKS?
bell hooks was one of the most widely read American writers on love, race, gender and class. Across nearly 40 books, from feminist theory to memoir, poetry and picture books for children, she wrote in clear, warm language meant for everyday readers. She was the first resident scholar at St. Norbert College’s Cassandra Voss Center, where the 2014 “Year of bell hooks” turned into three years because she kept wanting to come back. That is how her words came to be part of this book.
❋ Her nameShe was born Gloria Jean Watkins in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, in 1952. She took her pen name from her great-grandmother, Bell Blair Hooks, and wrote it in lowercase so readers would focus on her ideas rather than on her.
❋ A life of teachingShe taught at Yale, Oberlin and the City College of New York, and from 2004 at Berea College in Kentucky, where the bell hooks Institute was founded in 2014. She died in Berea in 2021, at 69.
❋ Love as a practiceHer central conviction, that love is something we practice and choose, not only something we feel, runs through every answer she gives in Maybe Life Hurts.
❋ Where to start readingAll About Love, her best-known book, on loving well in families, friendships and communities. Teaching to Transgress (1994), on education as a practice of freedom. Ain’t I a Woman (1981), her first major book, on Black women and feminism. Happy to Be Nappy, a picture book for reading aloud with children.
HER PLACE IN THE BOOK
On April 16, 2014, during the Cassandra Voss Center’s “Year of bell hooks,” the writer, teacher and cultural critic gave a lecture at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin, then stayed to take questions from the audience. Four of her answers appear in Maybe Life Hurts, printed with the explicit permission of her sister, Valeria Watkins, Ph.D.
❋ The first resident scholarShe was the Cassandra Voss Center’s inaugural resident scholar, and she quickly became one of Kurt Voss’s closest friends.
❋ Two sections of the bookHer words appear in “Grief and Loss” and again in “Human Healing and Repair,” in a feature that opens on page 320.
❋ A feature of her ownThe feature brings together her portrait, three more answers from that evening, a photograph with Kurt, and a closing spread beside a photo of Cassie at age two.
❋ The thread through it allAcross all four pieces she returns to one conviction: people can stay in relationship across real difference, and change comes through patience, listening and love.
THE FOUR PIECES
What she said, and where to find it
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This Is What Compost Made
PP. 158–159 · GRIEF AND LOSS
The question: How do you transform rage into love and make change, when it is so easy to stay angry?
She remembers arriving at a meeting with Thích Nhất Hạnh so angry she could barely speak, and his answer: hold on to your anger and use it as compost for your garden, with no condemnation of the rage itself. Then she turns to Kurt. Grief and anger are close kin, she says, and the Center is what his grief became.
“This is what compost made.”
To sit with: What in your own grief or anger might become compost for something new?
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Start Where They Are
P. 321 · HUMAN HEALING AND REPAIR
The question: How do we improve our relationships and support other people’s self-esteem, especially across intersecting identities?
Borrowing from Pema Chödrön, she says loving someone begins with hearing where they actually are. She tells of fifth graders who wanted to know what car she drove, and of a man who said her problem was that she thought too much. Healthy self-esteem, she says, means walking away from contempt, and never assuming children can’t think critically.
“Even with children, we have to start where they are.”
To sit with: Who in your life are you trying to reach, and where are they actually standing right now?
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You Have to Believe
PP. 322–323 · HUMAN HEALING AND REPAIR
The question: A young queer feminist asks how to keep talking with conservative, religious parents who do not accept her.
bell hooks gently asks whether she is trying to change them. She describes offering the prayer before family meals and praying aloud for an end to homophobia, meeting her parents in the place they believed. She speaks about her lesbian sister, her parents’ slow change over many years, standing by her brother through addiction, and the role of forgiveness in waiting and hoping.
“Forgiveness is very crucial in all our efforts at waiting and hoping.”
To sit with: Think of someone you love but disagree with deeply. What would it mean to wait for them, without giving up on yourself?
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The Space of My Hope
P. 324 · HUMAN HEALING AND REPAIR
The question: How long do we have to keep educating others about privilege before they understand it on their own?
She reframes it: the real question is how long we can engage in mutual struggle together, and how committed people in dominant roles are to listening. Then she turns to Kurt, who had spoken that day about respecting Cassandra enough to really hear her, even when they did not get along.
“It is my belief that change is always possible.”
To sit with: Here she speaks directly about Kurt and Cassandra. When has respect, more than agreement, kept a relationship open for you?
WRITER, TEACHER, FRIEND
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bell hooks (1952–2021) wrote more than thirty books about love, race, gender, teaching and community, including All About Love and Teaching to Transgress. She chose to write her name in lowercase so readers would focus on her ideas rather than on her.
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Her time at the Cassandra Voss Center grew into a lasting friendship with Kurt Voss. The two are photographed together on page 325.
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Her sister, Valeria C. Watkins, Ph.D., gave permission for these words to appear in the book, and contributes her own essay, “Discerning the Call to Freedom.”
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Page 224 pairs a line from her book All About Love with a photograph. Page 320 opens her feature with a full-page portrait. And page 330 closes it, setting “the space of my hope” beside a photo of Cassie at age two.