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Campus Reading at CC 2024-25

This guide accompanies the book for CC's Common Read Program and highlights other campus reading groups..

Common Read at CC

      

 The book explores what it means to truly belong.

hooks examines the idea that belonging is not only about
physical presence but a deep emotional connection to a
place and the people within it.

 

Access online version via Tutt Libray at:
Belonging : a culture of place

(login with your CC single sign in)
 

 

About the Author

bell hooks has earned wide acclaim being called a visionary by Utne Reader in 1995 and acknowledged by TIME magazine's "100 Women of the Year" in 2020.
She has taught at at Berea College, Stanford, Yale, and The City College of New York.
And she has written over 30 published books and contributed to magazines including Ms., Essence, and Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.
She writing reflects a mix of social commentary, autobiography, and feminist critique with scholarly rigor conveyed through accessible prose. She writes about racial (in)justice and love admidst societal upheaval.

Reflection Questions

bell hooks  Belonging; A Culture of Place 

 

Quotes with reflection questions : 

  1. “rituals of regard and recollection” .  

“We are born and have our being in a place of memory. We chart our lives by everything we remember from the mundane moment to the majestic. We know ourselves through the art and act of remembering. Memories offer us a world where there is no death, where we are sustained by rituals of regard and recollection” 

  • We often find it easier to communicate to someone else the majestic moments from our lives, but words may fail us in communicating what is sacred about the mundane.  

  • What are some of the mundane memories that hold special meaning to you? When do you remember them? How do they make you feel ? Is there a physical place in your body where that memory is held?  Is there a smell or other sensation that triggers this memory? How do you find intentional ways to keep that moment alive?  

  • What are some of your more majestic memories? What is the significance to you? What do you want others to know about this memory? What ways can we support you in celebrating? 

  • hooks's sentiment that we are sustained by rituals of regard is poetic – simultaneously ethereal and tangible. It brings to mind the oft quoted idea that people die 2 deaths, physical and once their memory is forgotten. This is the heart behind rituals like dia de los Muertos (Mexican/Latin American), Obon (Japanese), Samhain (Celtic) and even Memorial Day (U.S.).  

  • What rituals, celebrations, prayers or practices to honor people, places or events are a part of your background? Are these traditions secular or religious? How are they practiced? Is practice solitary or communal? Are people outside of the tradition allowed to participate and/or observe? Why or Why not?  

  • How/Do you plan to keep this tradition alive at CC? In what ways can the community support you in maintaining it? 

 

  1. “With reciprocity all things do not need to be equal in order for acceptance and mutuality to thrive. If equality is evoked as the only standard by which it is deemed acceptable for people to meet across boundaries and create community, then there is little hope. Fortunately, mutuality is a more constructive and positive foundation for the building of ties that allow for differences in status, position, power, and privilege whether determined by race, class, sexuality, religion, or nationality.” 

  • What is the difference between equality and mutuality? 

  • What are some examples of this difference working in your own life? 

  • What barriers do you think there are in moving from a collective expectation of equality to one of mutuality? 

  • How do you think we can live out a mutualistic community at CC? 

 

  1. “Living away from my native place I became more consciously Kentuckian than I was when I lived at home. This is what the experience of exile can do, change your mind, utterly transform one's perception of the world of home.” 

  • What communities, cultures and or geographic locations are a part of your pre-CC life? Do you feel their call stronger now that you are removed from them? What makes them distinct (Smells, sounds, views, food, etc.)  

  • Thomas Wolfe famously said “You can never return home”. In his view, both you and home will change and the place you return to will not be what you remember about it. Do you feel like aligns or negates hooks’ experience of retuning home? Does being excluded from places make home more or less welcoming? 

  • How do you expect your first time returning “home” to be for you? For your loved ones?  Welcoming? Contentious? What do you think you can do to prepare yourself and your loved ones for the reunion?  

 

  1. “...if we think of the natural landscapes that surround us as simply, blank slates, existing for humans to act upon them according to our will then we cannot exist in life sustaining harmony with the earth.”