Hopkinsville Community College will host four screenings of videotaped interviews and discussions featuring Hopkinsville native Gloria Jean Watkins, the late author best known by the pen name bell hooks, at the college in March for Women’s History Month.
The videos will be shown on the big screen at Thomas L. Riley Hall in HCC’s Auditorium. A discussion facilitated by faculty will follow. The screenings are scheduled for noon on March 1, 15, 22 and 29. The college will serve light refreshments, and COVID-19 protocols will be observed. Attendees are asked to wear a mask.
hooks, a Hopkinsville native, died at her home in Berea on Dec. 15. She was 69 years old.
“The chance to hear Dr. hooks articulate her research and thoughts and process that in a discussion forum gives us the chance to visit again with a giant in the field of feminism particularly,” history professor Dr. John Davis said in a news release. HCC’s History Club, Religion & Philosophy Club and the HCC Office of Student Engagement are sponsors of the series.
The college noted that hooks’ work included “lectures, writing and art on topics as varied as class, gender, systemic oppression, love, race, feminism, mass media and music, history and art.”
The series will cover the following topics:
March 1
Remembering bell hooks and her enormous legacy; bell hooks and her critique of imperialist white supremacist heteropatriarchy
March 15
How Do We Define Feminist Liberation?
March 22
bell hooks Speaks on Culture, Race and Healthy Self Esteem
March 29
All About Love: New Visions – Spirituality, Love, Christianity, and Buddhism
HCC recently announced it also plans to recognize hooks by installing a sculpture in her honor at the Round Table Literary Park on campus.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
