Teaching to Transgress

"After reading Teaching to Transgress I am once again struck by bell hooks's never-ending, unquiet intellectual energy, an energy that makes her radical and loving." – Paulo Freire

"A book that I not only love, but assign every semester to my Introduction to Women's Studies class. It is one of the best descriptions of the purpose and function of education and the educator that I've ever read. And students love it. So if you know any professors or students who aren't familiar with it, recommend it highly." – Feminist Bookstore News

In Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks – writer, teacher, and insurgent black intellectual –writes about a new kind of education, education as the practice of freedom. Teaching students to "transgress" against racial, sexual, and class boundaries in order to achieve the gift of freedom is, for hooks, the teacher's most important goal.

bell hooks speaks to the heart of education today: how can we rethink teaching practices in the age of multiculturalism? What do we do about teachers who do not want to teach, and students who do not want to learn? How should we deal with racism and sexism in the classroom?

Full of passion and politics, Teaching to Transgress combines a practical knowledge of the classroom with a deeply felt connection to the world of emotions and feelings. This is the rare book about teachers and students that dares to raise questions about eros and rage, grief and reconciliation, and the future of teaching itself.

"To educate is the practice of freedom," writes bell hooks, "is a way of teaching anyone can learn." Teaching to Transgress is the record of one gifted teacher's struggle to make classrooms work.

bell hooks (1952-2021) was an author, feminist and activist, whose writing was at the juncture of race, class, and gender. A figurehead of intersectionality, she authored numerous feminist classics and in 2014 the bell hooks institute was founded in her name. Her books include Ain’t I a Woman (also available from Left Book Club), Feminist Theory (Pluto Press, 2000) and Feminism is for Everybody (Pluto Press, 2000).