SOURCE: "Practicing Freedom," in The Women's Review of Books, Vol. XII, No. 6, March, 1995, pp. 10-11.

In the following review, Haley provides a detailed analysis of Teaching to Transgress and Outlaw Culture.

Have you ever read a book and felt that it was written about you? This usually happens to me only with novels, so I was especially startled to read bell hooks' latest collection of essays, Teaching to Transgress. Like hooks, I have been teaching in a college or university setting for twenty years. Like hooks, I am a Black woman who advocates feminism; like hooks, my degree is in a traditional Eurocentric field—Classics for me, English literature for her. We share a passion for curricular transformation and critical thinking.

As I read Teaching to Transgress, I found myself sighing with relief many times; here, for all to read, was my experience of teaching, pedagogy and classroom...