ANN ARBOR—Cultural critic, author and feminist theorist bell hooks will speak on Jan. 15 as part of the University of Michigan’s 16th annual Martin Luther King, Jr., symposium. Celebrated as one of the nation’s leading public intellectuals by The Atlantic Monthly, and named one of Utne Reader’s "100 Visionaries Who Could Change Your Life," hooks divides her time among teaching, writing and lecturing around the world. hooks, who signs her name in lower-case letters, has served as a professor in the English departments at Yale University and Oberlin College, and most recently as a Distinguished Professor of English at City College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She is the author of more than 20 books, including: "Rock My Soul," "Black Folk and Self-Esteem, Communion," " The Female Search for Love, Salvation," "Black People and Love, All About Love," "New Visions, Remembered Rapture," "The Writer at Work, Wounds of Passion," "A Writing Life, Bone Black," "Memories of Girlhood, Killing Rage," "Ending Racism, Art on My Mind," "Visual Politics," and with Cornell West, "Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life." Her latest book, "Communion: The Female Search for Love," was released Dec. 24. Co-sponsors of the program include the University of Michigan’s Information Technology Central Services, the Law Library, the Office of Multicultural Affairs, School of Information, University Housing and the University Library. The overall theme of this year’s MLK Symposium is: "We must be the change we wish to see in the world," (taken from a quote by Mahatma Gandhi). The free presentation will be in the Michigan Union Ballroom at 4:30 p.m. with a book signing immediately following the program. For more information about MLK events at U-M, visit the symposium Web site at www.mlksymposium.org/