Bell_Hooks__Authoritative_Expertise

Bell Hooks: Authoritative Expertise Bell hooks has an uncanny way of pushing the political buttons of her opposition and collogues by using her politically charged and aggressive approach to sensitive issues. She attacks the old definitions of expertise and authority and suggests new ones. Hooks challenges those who claim to be experts in cultural academia and ethnic groups. Scholars in the academy largely use the objective of the term expertise to define it; a competitive stance of mainstream academic argument at the expense of personal knowledge and connective goals (Benlenky 15). Hooks argues in “Feminist Scholarship: Ethical Issues”, that in the old and present academic paradigm of the “authoritative voice”, the only thing that classifies an expert in his or her field is the recognition of their work by white male and female academics (hooks 131). No one cultural perspective should be established as the definitive voice of academia. In the same respect, other cultural perspectives should not be devalued (hooks 131). By redefining the old paradigm of the authoritative voice hooks tears down the walls of the old school thought process and opens up space for contemporary thinkers to build on. Hooks seems to reroute the common hooks, bell, should, white, old, issues, cultural, academic, voice, thought, thinkers, scholars, books, 130, work, trends, scholarship, present, people, paradigm, one, mean, feminist, expertise, experiences, ethical, common, black, bell, authoritative, academy, academia, about, written, writing, write, way, walls, valuable, using, understanding, uncanny, today’s, think, thing, term, tears, teacher