The Necessity of Love

Abstract

bell hooks was a tour-de-force in feminist studies and cultural studies, two disciplines that are seemingly separate from criminal justice and criminology. That distance is what first illuminated for me a critical need, an emptiness in how to connect and understand community and scholarship as a Black woman researching race, gender, and “justice.” Love, according to hooks, is a source of transformation for individuals and for society. It is that same principal of love and transformation that should be necessary for criminologists who purport to study inequalities and the criminal legal system yet is often absent. Love is also necessary to inspire evolution of academics and of scholarship.