Abstract

Throughout bell hooks's body of work, beginning with Ain't I a Woman (1981), there are two dominant, epistemological strands interwoven into the trajectory of hooks's thought: firstly, the oppositional gaze and, secondly, critical pedagogy. Ultimately, what ties these two strands together are two substantive acts of resistance, which make both the oppositional gaze and critical pedagogy possible: hearing/listening and speaking/voicing. These substantive acts of resistance arise through sonic pedagogies, insofar as what occurs through hearing/listening and speaking/voicing acts are substantively grounded in sound studies. In turn, for hooks, the very notion of sound—that which informs sonic pedagogies—itself becomes integral to the meaning and meaningfulness of the oppositional gaze as it is first evoked in Black Looks (1992), through the meaning and meaningfulness of hearing/listening and speaking/voicing. In the same regard, hooks's approach to sound becomes important for critical pedagogy—that which provides the scope of sonic pedagogies—especially as it is advanced mainly across three works: Teaching to Transgress (1994), Teaching Community (2003), and Teaching Critical Thinking (2010).