Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery / Edition 2

by bell hooks

Overview

In Sisters of the Yam, bell hooks reflects on the ways in which the emotional health of black women has been and continues to be impacted by sexism and racism. Desiring to create a context where black females could both work on their individual efforts for self-actualization while remaining connected to a larger world of collective struggle, hooks articulates the link between self-recovery and political resistance. Both an expression of the joy of self-healing and the need to be ever vigilant in the struggle for equality, Sisters of the Yam continues to speak to the experience of black womanhood.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	2901138821681
Publication date:	11/04/2014
Pages:	198
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 1.25(h) x 9.00(d)

About the Author

A cultural critic, an intellectual, and a feminist writer, bell hooks is best known for classic books including Ain’t I a Woman, 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. hooks is Distinguished Professor in Residence in Appalachian Studies at Berea College, and resides in her home state of Kentucky.

Table of Contents

Preface to the New Edition: Reflections of Light Introduction: Healing Darkness 1. Seeking After Truth 2. Tongues of Fire 3. Work Makes Life Sweet 4. Knowing Peace 5. Growing Away from Addiction 6. Dreaming Ourselves Dark and Deep 7. Facing and Feeling Loss 8. Moved by Passion 9. Living to Love 10. Sweet Communion 11. The Joy of Reconciliation 12. Touching the Earth 13. Walking in the Spirit An Interview with bell hooks (2004)

Editorial Reviews

The noted author of Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism ( LJ 12/1/81) and Black Looks: Race and Represen tation ( LJ 7/92) takes a down-to-earth appproach to the process of self-actualization. An avid fan of self-help literature and a professor of African American studies, hooks summons the perspectives of both these disciplines to address the concerns of victims of institutionalized racism, sexism, and capitalist oppression. The title captures the yam's status as ``a life-sustaining symbol of black kinship and community'' as well as being the name of the author's campus support group. Through personal testimony, hooks describes how women can heal lives strained by kin, work, loss, yearning, mendacity, addiction, and ego. She considers the political realities black women must face as she implores them to heal themselves. Readers trying to unlearn racism and sexism will respect hooks for politicizing the self-recovery movement. Highly recommended.-- Kathleen E. Bethel, Northwestern Univ. Lib., Evans ton, Ill.

Library Journal

"Sisters of the Yam, with its mixture of personal narrative, cultural critique, brief literary analyses, and plain, old-fashioned, kitchen table common-sense advice, might very well reach beyond the university to the diverse groups of people that have been hooks’s ‘intended’ audience throughout much of her speaking and writing." —Sandra Adell, African American Review (1995)

"In Sisters of the Yam, hooks articulates black women’s healing as an expression of ‘liberatory political practice.’ This statement transformed my consciousness as a health activist. By simply caring for myself, I can be a revolutionary. . ." —Sariane Leigh, The Feminist Wire (2012)

From the Publisher