Just as women’s studies broadened its understanding of feminism in the 1980s to include race, class, age, sexuality and religion, so, too, African and African American studies is undergoing a paradigm shift, redefining what “blackness” means, James explains. For example, a large number of U.S. immigrants and first-generation citizens are from the Caribbean, Africa or Central and South America.

“Their experiences and understanding of what it means to be black are different from American descendents of Africans brought to this country as slaves,” points out James. “Our challenge is to tackle in a realistic way the complexities of the black experience both here and around the world.”

ASU’s African and African American Studies Program is not yet a decade old, so James is working  simultaneously to build local visibility and national prominence. Her move to Tempe has already bumped the nascent program onto the national radar. The consummate academic, James has brought with her an international network and strong reputation for insightful scholarship, curricular innovations and important contributions to professional associations.

Her co-edited anthology, “Theorizing Black Feminisms: The Visionary Pragmatism of Black Women,” is considered an influential work in black feminist literature. As co-convener of the African Studies Association Women’s Caucus in the early ’90s, James

arranged a session for reasoned international discussion on the contentious issue of female genital cutting and won an award for an anthology she co-edited from the discussions. Her current research is focused on black women’s impact on the development of international human rights.

Combining a can-do leadership style with great listening and analytical abilities, James has built bridges among scholars across the boundaries of discipline, race, ethnicity and nationality. For ASU students, these qualities promise an exceptional learning environment.

“Studying race, class and gender issues is often contrary to what students have been raised with,” James observes. “You can’t shut people down as they struggle with new perspectives. Creating a place where people can talk freely and disagree with one another is so critical to opening minds and building understanding.

Growing up in Iowa, Stanlie James—the new director of ASU’s African and African American Studies Program—was one of only 12 black students in her Des Moines high school. Determined to experience a less-isolating cultural environment at the university level, James enrolled in Spelman College, the historically black women’s college in Atlanta.

“That experience was life-changing,” she recalls. “It was the late ’60s, and Atlanta was an exciting place to be, with civil-rights demonstrations and other forms of potentially dangerous political activism. Friends in the North thought my parents were derelict in their parental duties to let me go! But Spelman was an electrifying place to learn, with black leaders, scholars and artists regularly coming to campus—from Gunnar Myrdal and Duke Ellington to Stokely Carmichael and Martin Luther King.”

Spelman is renowned for empowering young women to pursue careers in academia or the professions, and James was no exception.  She went on to earn a master’s degree from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London and then completed

a second master’s and a doctoral degree in international studies at the University of Denver before joining the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1989.

At Wisconsin, James held joint appointments in Afro-American studies and women’s studies. She directed the Women’s Studies Research Center for four years and chaired the Afro-American studies department for almost five. James says she’d exhausted the leadership challenges “that spoke to her” on the campus, so the offer from ASU came at an opportune time. (James succeeds as director Okechukwu Iheduru, who moved to the political science faculty.)

“My interest piqued when I learned that ASU was committed to building a program that was diasporic in nature,” she says. “I also knew that black studies in the Phoenix area would need to mature in a unique but exciting way, as Chicano, Latino and Native American peoples are such a vibrant part of the population.