bell hooks

Writing her name in lowercase

Unlike most other academics and cultural critics, bell hooks actually prefers her name to be written in lowercase. This was to encourage people to focus on her ideas rather than her as a person. She wanted people to understand that she’s writing what she considers to be core truths about the world, not that she’s writing for fame or glory.

When I tell my students this, they often ask me a pretty good question: doesn’t breaking usual expectations of how we write names (what we could call ‘external deviation’ in stylistics) make us notice her name even more? And if her foregrounded name prompts us to ask questions, doesn’t that defeat the purpose?

I think that’s a fair question. But she’s got us talking about whether names should matter in cultural criticism, right? And isn’t ‘focus on the message, not the person’ one of her messages? We’re now talking about whether she’s used the right methods to achieve her goals, which is a critique of what she’s doing, not her as a person. So I think she’s probably argue she’s achieved her goals.