hooks, bell. “Theory as Liberatory Practice.” Teaching to Trangress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routlege, 1994. 59-75. Print.

In this essay, bell hooks challenges the perceived dichotomy between theory and practice or lived experience. hooks attributes the unnecessary disinterest in feminism and feminist theory by women to this dichotomy. According to hooks, feminist theory presented as mysterious and/ or disconnected from real life experiences and concerns beyond the classroom “assaults the fragile psyches of women struggling to throw off patriarchy’s oppressive yoke” (65). This type of theory edifies academic departments, but undermines liberatory movements.

Theorizing must be connected to action, practice, critical reflection, and/ or lived experience:

This is what makes feminist transformation possible. Personal testimony, personal experience, is such fertile ground for the production of liberatory feminist theory because it usually forms the base of our theory (70).