Sunbathing with bell hooks

Prof hooks is NOT in her bathing suit, but I'm in my new tankini (it's sassy), soaking up the sun and sweating while enjoying some edifying entertainment.


I'm definitely going to be reading some of bell hooks' work this fall - I'm watching her via her website. It's a lecture/discussion from the Univ. of Washington in 2005, and she reads her two childrens books, Bee Boy Buzz and Skin Again, both of which I'm going to look for, along with Happy to be Nappy, which I actually think I've read.


Ooh, her very brief comments about the world of Harry Potter are 'scandalous', but I have to say, really true.

"Harry Potter is just a little hotbed of imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal thinking."

My friend Ted pointed out some of the problems in the books and I was just shocked. There are some things in life that I really don't look so closely at, and others I can't see very clearly because I am looking SO close. Anyhow, I'm glad to have 'discovered' this stuff (hat tip to the Undercover Black Man) today. Perfect timing.

UPDATE: Well, I've finished the book (book 7 of Harry Potter), and also went searching for more on bell hooks and the HP series. And found this: "The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity and Love", wherein Prof. hooks talks a bit more on Harry Potter. I've just skimmed it...

I've also just read an article on the world of HP from the American Prospect - a magazine I've actually never seen in public, and one I hold with some suspicion, but I couldn't say why. It's a vague sense of unease which is difficult to explain. Perhaps I read something disturbing there once?