Publisher Description
In this provocative and captivating dialogue, bell hooks and Cornel West come together to discuss the dilemmas, contradictions, and joys of Black intellectual life. The two friends and comrades in struggle talk, argue, and disagree about everything from community to capitalism in a series of intimate conversations that range from playful to probing to revelatory. In evoking the act of breaking bread, the book calls upon the various traditions of sharing that take place in domestic, secular, and sacred life where people come together to give themselves, to nurture life, to renew their spirits, sustain their hopes, and to make a lived politics of revolutionary struggle an ongoing practice.
This twenty-fifth anniversary edition continues the dialogue with "In Solidarity," their 2016 conversation at the bell hooks Institute on racism, politics, popular culture, and the contemporary Black experience.
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About the Authors
Cornel West is a philosopher, academic,
activist, author, actor, critic, and prominent member of the Democratic
Socialists of America. He is a graduate of Harvard University and received his
PhD at Princeton University. The author of numerous books and articles, he is
best known for his three New York Times bestsellers
Race Matters, Democracy Matters, and Rich and
the Rest of Us, co-authored with Tavis Smiley, as well as his memoir Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud.
He appears frequently on the Bill Maher
Show, Colbert Report, CNN, and C-Span; he has also appeared in over twenty-five
documentaries and films, including Examined
Life, Call & Response, Sidewalk, and Stand.
bell hooks (1952–2021), a cultural critic, intellectual, and feminist writer, was best known for her classic books, including Ain’t I a Woman, Feminism Is for Everybody, Feminist Theory, Bone Black, All About Love, Rock My Soul, Belonging, We Real Cool, Where We Stand, Teaching to Transgress, Teaching Community, Outlaw Culture, and Reel to Real. She was a distinguished professor in residence in Appalachian studies at Berea College.
About Adenrele Ojo
Adenrele Ojo is an actress, dancer, and audiobook narrator, winner of over a dozen Earphones Awards and the prestigious Audie Award for best narration in 2018. She made her on-screen debut in My Little Girl, starring Jennifer Lopez, and has since starred in several other films. She has also performed extensively with the Philadelphia Dance Company. As the daughter of John E. Allen, Jr., founder and artistic director of Freedom Theatre, the oldest African American theater in Pennsylvania, is no stranger to the stage. In 2010 she performed in the Fountain Theatre’s production of The Ballad of Emmett Till, which won the 2010 LA Stage Alliance Ovation Award and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Award for Best Ensemble. Other plays include August Wilson’s Jitney and Freedom Theatre’s own Black Nativity, where she played Mary.