Gathered by: Chera Jo Watts In honor and celebration of the life, works, and legacy of bell hooks, the Inaugural bell hooks symposium took place at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky, from June 16 – 18, 2023. Centering around the broad theme, “Dissident Feminisms,” symposium coordinators asserted that, “While maintaining the connection between a love ethic and critical consciousness, hooks calls on us to cultivate visionary spaces, beloved communities, outlaw cultures, and radical undercommons in which oppositional worldviews are rooted in the experiential.” Institute Director, Dr. Carolyn Jones Medine, along with Graduate Certificate alumni, Dr. Sha’Mira Covington (PhD, 2023) and Chera Jo Watts (MA, 2022), joined fellow University of Georgia alum, Dr. Kristian Hogans (PhD, 2023), for a panel entitled “bell hooks’s Love Ethic: Body, Practice, and Homeplace,” which facilitated conversation among approximately thirty symposium participants. Those interested in future symposiums should email bhcsymposium@gmail.com for more information, or visit the bell hooks center website: https://www.berea.edu/centers/the-bell-hooks-center.
