Draft:Derek Hook

• Comment: Well done on creating the draft, and it may potentially meet the relevant requirements (including WP:GNG, WP:ANYBIO, WP:NPROF, WP:AUTHOR) but presently it is not clear that it does.
  As you may know, Wikipedia's basic requirement for entry is that the subject is notable. Essentially subjects are presumed notable if they have received significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject. To properly create such a draft page, please see the articles ‘Your First Article’, ‘Referencing for Beginners’ and ‘Easier Referencing for Beginners’. In short, "notability" requires reliable sources about the subject, rather than by the subject.
  Please note that many of the references would appear to be from sources that are NOT considered reliable for establishing notability and should be removed (including blogs, company websites, press releases, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Spotify etc).
  At least one reference (to Reading Lacan's Elicit) is not formatted correctly and needs fixing please.
  Also, if you have any connection to the subject, including being the subject (see WP:AUTOBIO) or being paid, you have a conflict of interest that you must declare on your Talk page (to see instructions on how to do this please click the link). In instances of a conflict of interest, the review of the page needs to be handled with care, mindful of the higher bar set by pages produced in circumstances of such a conflict. Such pages typically may read too much like a promotional CV or advertorial, which Wikipedia is not; and/or contain prose that is not of a standard appropriate for an encyclopaedia (also see WP:PEACOCK and WP:NPV).
  Please familiarise yourself with these pages before amending the draft. If you feel you can meet these requirements, then please make the necessary amendments before resubmitting the page.
  It would help our volunteer reviewers by identifying, on the draft's talk page, the WP:THREE best sources that establish notability of the subject.
  It would also be helpful if you could please identify with specificity, exactly which criteria you believe the page meets (eg "I think the page now meets WP:NPROF criteria #3, because XXXXX").
  Once you have implemented these suggestions, you may also wish to leave a note for me on my talk page, including the name of the draft page, and I would be happy to reassess. As I said, I do think this draft has potential so please do persevere. Cabrils (talk) 01:39, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

---

Derek Hook
Born	South Africa
Occupation(s)	Psychologist; psychoanalyst; academic
Employer(s)	Duquesne University; University of Pretoria
Known for	Lacanian psychoanalysis; critical psychology; postcolonial theory
Academic work
Notable works	A Critical Psychology of the Postcolonial; Six Moments in Lacan; Lacan and Race

Derek Hook is a South African-born psychologist and psychoanalyst. He is Professor of Psychology at Duquesne University and an Extraordinary Professor of Psychology at the University of Pretoria. He serves on the editorial board of Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society.

Academic career

Hook’s scholarship focuses on Lacanian theory and its applications to race, clinical technique, and subjectivity, alongside postcolonial and psychosocial approaches influenced by Frantz Fanon. He also maintains a YouTube channel (@derekhookonlacan) featuring lectures on psychoanalysis and critical theory, which has an international following.

Selected works

Authore

• Six Moments in Lacan: Communication and Identification in Psychology and Psychoanalysis. Routledge, 2017. ISBN 9781138211612.
• Whiteness at the Abyss: A Lacanian Reading of "White Anxiety". Palgrave Macmillan, 2025. ISBN 9783031785085.

Edited or co-edited (Lacan)

• Stijn Vanheule, Derek Hook, Calum Neill (eds.), Reading Lacan’s Écrits: From "Signification of the Phallus" to "Metaphor of the Subject". Routledge, 2019. ISBN 9780415708029.
• Derek Hook, Calum Neill, Stijn Vanheule (eds.), Reading Lacan’s Écrits: From "The Freudian Thing" to "Remarks on Daniel Lagache". Routledge, 2020. ISBN 9780415707985.
• Derek Hook, Calum Neill, Stijn Vanheule (eds.), Reading Lacan’s Écrits: From "Logical Time" to "Response to Jean Hyppolite". Routledge, 2022. ISBN 9781032205755.
• Calum Neill, Derek Hook, Stijn Vanheule (eds.), Reading Lacan’s Écrits: From "Overture to this Collection" to "Presentation on Psychical Causality". Routledge, 2024. ISBN 9781032437378.
• Sheldon George, Derek Hook (eds.), Lacan and Race: Racism, Identity, and Psychoanalytic Theory. Routledge, 2022. ISBN 9780367345976.
• Derek Hook, Stijn Vanheule (eds.), Lacan on Depression and Melancholia. Routledge, 2023. ISBN 9781032106533.

Other notable books

• Foucault, Psychology and the Analytics of Power. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. ISBN 9780230008199.
• A Critical Psychology of the Postcolonial: The Mind of Apartheid. Routledge, 2011. ISBN 9780415587570.

Reception

Reviews have discussed Hook’s contributions across critical psychology and psychoanalysis. In Africa Spectrum, Danielle Faye Tran called A Critical Psychology of the Postcolonial “an essential read for students of all levels … on racism and social psychology in post-Apartheid states.” A Routledge blurb quotes Stijn Vanheule describing Six Moments in Lacan as “erudite [and] entertaining,” noting it “bypasses the twin trappings of dogmatism and theoretical jargon.”

Controversy

In September 2021, a clip from a lecture by Hook circulated online, leading to claims he had endorsed “white people committing suicide” as an ethical act. A Reuters fact-check found the claim was missing context, noting Hook had been quoting another scholar rather than advocating the idea, and reported that he called the suggestion “absurd and immoral.” The episode received wider media attention, including coverage by Fox News. An editorial in Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society stated that a “tiny excerpt” had been used “to distort and villainize his work,” and confirmed that the related article underwent standard peer review. Subsequently, Professor Stephen Frosh published an analysis of the episode in relation to academic freedom and antisemitism, linking it to similar attacks on scholars such as Donald Moss. Hook later published his own account and analysis of the incident in the same journal. Slavoj Žižek also engaged the debate in Crisis & Critique.