Bell hooks (September 25, 1952, as Gloria Watkins in Hopkinsville, Kentucky) is an African American philosopher and advocate for feminist and anti-racist approaches. Her pseudonym is the name of her indigenous grandmother; she chose to use lowercase letters to emphasize the content of her work over her personal identity. hooks was born to a working-class family and studied at Stanford (B.A. 1973) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (M.A. 1976). She earned her Ph.D. at the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1983. After teaching positions at Yale and Oberlin College, she has been a professor of English literature at the City College of New York since 1994. She is renowned for her lectures, speeches, and public appearances.