bell hooks is one of America's most engaging public intellectuals. In this richly illustrated two-part interview, hooks argues that we can acknowledge the impact of media without denying our own agency or the pleasure we derive from popular culture. Rather than ignoring or denying the power of representation, hooks advocates for critically confronting the influence of media in our lives.

"Between the 1940s and 1980s, Chicago's Black press-- from The Chicago Defender to the Negro Digest to self-published pamphlets-- was home to some of the best cartoonists in America. Kept out of the pages of white-owned newspapers, Black cartoonists found space to address the joys, the horrors, and the everyday realities of Black life in America. From Jay Jackson's anti-racist time travel adventure serial Bungleton Green, to Morrie Turner's radical...