Dr. Stanlie James began her career as an innovative scholar of Black feminism and international human rights.
Now, as the vice provost of inclusion and community engagement at Arizona State University (ASU) since 2016, she has pioneered initiatives that have attracted the attention of national organizations.
A fourth-generation Black Iowan, James recalls being one of a few Black students at the schools she attended. Longing for a more inclusive academic environment, she chose to attend Spelman College, the historically Black women’s college in Atlanta, where she earned degrees in sociology and history. As an undergraduate, she expanded her horizons by studying abroad in Ghana. Years later, as a doctoral student at the University of Denver, she would write a dissertation that focused on Black feminism in Ghana.
As a professor of African-American studies at ASU’s School of Social Transformation, she has taught courses in women’s human rights and the history of Black women in America.
Over the past few decades, James has written comparative studies on Black feminism, female genital cutting and forms of motherhood. She prefers the phrase “female genital cutting” over “female genital mutilation” because she considers the latter to be an expression of the West’s cultural condescension and hypocrisy. Only recently, she says, has the United States started addressing its own problem of surgically removing the genitals of infants born with two sex organs before the child can determine his or her own gender identity.
Within the context of motherhood, James has studied the phenomenon of “othermothering,” where nonbiological mothers play nurturing roles for children in their communities. She says this form of communal motherhood was particularly important for the Little Rock Nine, the young pioneers of school desegregation.
Today, though she spends less time on research, she applies her profound understanding of oppression and inequity to her administrative work.
