I always kind of chuckle at people labeling me a public intellectual. I chuckle because people used to say, “How have you written so much?” and I’d say, “By not having a life.” There is nothing public about the energy, the discipline and solitude it takes to produce so much writing. I think of public intellectuals as very different, because I think that they’re airing their work for that public engagement. Really, in all the years of my writing that was not my intention. It was to produce theory that people could use. I have this phrase that I use, “working with the work.” So if somebody comes up to me, and they have one of those bell hooks books that’s abused and battered, and every page is underlined, I know they’ve been working with the work. And that’s where it is for me.
-bell hooks NYT interview with George Yancy (2015)
blessings to this soul on the big journey back home today. may she rest in peace & power.
the first thing that came to mind after the shock wore off was this phrase, “working with the work.”
the many layers of this phrase…to create work that is then meant to be worked with is to give agency to the recipient of knowledge. for them to pore over her provocations, apply them to their own lives or lenses, and carry the ripple of that theory or knowledge onward. i respect the labor of wrestling slippery realities with a deep bow. allowing the rest of us safer passage, through these insights, to a more free and loving version of ourselves. milking the work of its unending nourishment.
with her passing today, i could only feel the immense amount of working that is left to do without tremendous guides like her on this earthly plane. like her great-grandmother whom she honors with her chosen name. like all the ones who have left work for us to work with until there is nothing left to work out anymore.
~
fyi bell hooks Cultural Criticism & Transformation + a youtube preview
♥ rest in profound peace & power ♥