The Last Interview is a series of books each entitled, The Last Interview and Other Conversations that offers a fresh look at some of the world’s leading innovative writers and edgiest cultural figures by gathering conversations from throughout an artist’s career and collecting them in one volume. There are currently 41 books in the series and the next one coming will feature Sinead O’Connor.
Having read two of the books in bell hooks Love trilogy, All About Love and Salvation (the third book Communion, I have – but yet to read), I was interested to read these interviews. They provide more background on the author and allow for the greater understanding and depth in a subject that conversation can bring. They include an exploration of her affiliation and interest in Buddhist thought.
Overall, while the interviews are interesting, I think it is great to read the work of bell hooks, as she was quite prolific on a number of topics and a very engaging writer and thinker. If you have read all her work, this will be a bonus read and if you haven’t these interviews, some of which you can find online are a great introduction.
Meet and Read bell hooks
bell hooks (born Gloria Jean Watkins) (1952-2021) was an African-American author, feminist, and social activist. Her writing focused on education, political theory, the interconnectivity of race, class, and gender and their ability to produce and perpetuate systems of oppression and domination.
The pseudonym she used, was the name of her great-grandmother, to honour female legacies, spelling it always in lower case letters, to focus on her works and message, about ideas and not herself.
She published over thirty books and numerous scholarly and mainstream articles, appeared in several documentary films and participated in various public lectures. Primarily through a postmodern female perspective, she addressed race, class, and gender in education, art, history, sexuality, mass media and feminism.
The bell hooks theory
She is most well known for her feminist theory that recognizes that social classifications (e.g. race, gender, sexual identity, class, etc.) are interconnected, and that ignoring their intersection creates inequality and oppression towards women and changes the experience of living as a woman in society.
On Love
In her book All About Love, bell hooks perspective is heart lead, her definition of love leaves behind conditioned perceptions of romance and desire and the traditional roles of carer, nurturer, provider – and suggests that it might be ‘the will to do for oneself or another that which enables us to grow and evolve spiritually’ love becomes a verb not a noun.
“All too often women believe it is a sign of commitment, an expression of love, to endure unkindness or cruelty, to forgive and forget. In actuality, when we love rightly we know that the healthy, loving response to cruelty and abuse is putting ourselves out of harm’s way.”
I find her work particularly interesting as it sits alongside the work of another cultural commentator, Riane Eisler’s The Chalice and the Blade and Nurturing Our Humanity in addressing those systems of domination such as class, gender and race that interfere with our ability to commune with one another.
It is also in alignment with the work of Anita Moorjani, another heart based spiritual commentator, who wrote Sensitive is the new Strong, Dying To Be Me and What If This is Heaven?.
The Interviews – No Such Thing as Bad Publicity?
One of the interviews addresses the controversy of her decision to appear on a live talk show, something she did as a way for her to reach a different, wider audience. It was a strategy that in one sense did not work that well for her, due to the hard time she was given on the show. However, despite the public take-down, her aim was still achieved, as the silent majority who watched it from their homes, will have become more aware of who she was and the message she was trying to portray, in particular to Black women.
In the collection of seven interviews, stretching from early in her career until her last interview, she discusses feminism, the complexity of rap music and masculinity, her relationship to Buddhism, the “politic of domination,” sexuality, and love and the importance of communication across cultural borders.
Dominator culture has tried to keep us all afraid, to make us choose safety instead of risk, sameness instead of diversity. Moving through that fear, finding out what connects us, reveling in our differences; this is the process that brings us closer, that gives us a world of shared values, of meaningful community.
– Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope, 2003
Whether she was sparking controversy on campuses or facing criticism from contemporaries, hooks relentlessly challenged herself and those around her, she inserted herself into the tensions of the cultural moment, and anchored herself with love.
For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?
– in conversation with Maya Angelou, 1998
On Tough Love, Loving Environments and Community
This was an interview by Abigail Bereola for Shondaland in December 2017 on self-love, discussing why we know so little about it or how to even cultivate it, and how a lack of it has played into the patriarchal culture of workplace abuse and assault.
I think that societies begin with our small units of community, which are family — whether bio or chosen. I am often amazed when I meet people that I see have been raised in loving families because they’re so different and they live in the world differently. I don’t agree that every family is dysfunctional — I think we don’t want to admit that when people are loving, it’s a different world. It’s an amazing world. It’s a world of peace. It’s not that they don’t have pain, but they know how to handle their pain in a way that’s not self-negating. And so I think insomuch as we begin to look again at the family and challenging and changing patriarchy within family systems, irrespective of what those families are, there’s hope for love.
I have enjoyed her books considerably and the interviews extend her work into the joy of what conversation can bring. Though some of her work is clearly targeted at Black women, I believe there is value in it for all, indeed, it is necessary to read outside one’s own race, gender, culture, ethnic group and language, to understand other perspectives and the issues that others face. Sometimes we find resonance, other times, we pay attention, listen, read and learn. There is plenty to learn and consider in the writings and conversations of bell hooks.
N.B. This was an ARC (Advance Reader Copy) kindly provided by the publisher via NetGalley.