JAMES, Stanlie M(yrise)

PERSONAL: Born in Des Moines, IA; daughter of Lewis A. (a dentist) and Barbara Jean (a teacher; maiden name, Brown) James; married Eugene Jackson (marriage ended); children: Reagan. Education: Spelman College, B.A.; University of London, M.A.; University of Denver, Graduate School of International Studies, M.A., Ph.D. Religion: Episcopalian.

ADDRESSES: Offıce—University of Wisconsin, 4109 Helen C. White, 600 North Park St., Madison, WI 53706. Agent—c/o Author Mail, University of Illinois Press, 1325 South Oak St., Champaign, IL 61820-6903.

CAREER: Author, political scientist, and educator. University of Wisconsin, Madison, professor and chair of Afro-American studies department, professor of women's studies, 1988—. Director, Women's Studies Research Center.

AWARDS, HONORS: Susan S. Koppleman award for feminist editing of an anthology, 2003, for Genital Cutting and Transnational Sisterhood: Disputing U.S. Polemics.

WRITINGS:

(Editor, with Abena P. A. Busia, and contributor) Theorizing Black Feminisms: The VisionaryPragmatism of Black Women, Routledge (New York, NY), 1993.

(Editor, with Claire C. Robertson, and contributor) Genital Cutting and Transnational Sisterhood: Disputing U.S. Polemics, University of Illinois Press (Urbana, IL), 2002.

Contributor to periodicals, including Signs.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Worthy of Liberation: Black Feminist Human Rights Theorizing.

SIDELIGHTS: Stanlie M. James is a professor of Afro-American studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her teaching and research interests delve deeply into issues related to what she calls "black feminisms" and women's human rights throughout the world. In Theorizing Black Feminisms: The Visionary Pragmatism of Black Women, a work James edited with Abena P. A. Busia, she helps to "push the boundaries of Black women's social theory," commented Women's Review of Books reviewer Patricia Hill Collins, continuing: "Overall, this interdisciplinary anthology emphasizes the necessity of linking caring, theoretical vision with informed, practical struggle." According to College Literature contributor of Madhu Dubey, "This important anthology, which contains an impressively wide range of essays (on issues including black women's academic theorizing, political activism, labor participation, literary and visual art, health, and sexuality), extends earlier efforts to theorize black feminism within an international and interdisciplinary frame."

Arranged in four sections and covering both Africa and the United States, Theorizing Black Feminisms addresses topics such as updating and modifying current theoretical paradigms of black feminism in disciplines such as history, sociology, and political science; practical and pragmatic elements of theorizing black feminism; issues of black women's control of their own bodies and health, including reproductive health; and the newly emerging identities of black women being forged from both practical and theoretical struggles. "What is most distinctive about this anthology is not that it breaks new theoretical ground, but rather that it exemplifies the double gesture—of simultaneously consolidating and complicating the category 'black women'—that seems necessary at this moment in the history of black feminist theory," Dubey commented. "Theorizing Black Feminisms," observed Claudia Tate in Signs, "is a product of vigilance."

Genital Cutting and Transnational Sisterhood: Disputing U.S. Polemics, a work James edited with Claire C. Robertson, examines in depth the controversial procedures of clitoridectomy, genital mutilation, and infibulation—the removal of all external female genitalia—as practiced in countries throughout Africa. The editors discuss issues such as terminology and the misleading nature of some descriptions of the practice such as female circumcision, both in terms of the actual nature of the procedure and the relatively minor impact of the conceptually related term of male circumcision. Genital Cutting and Transnational Sisterhood argues that the elimination of these damaging procedures must start not with Westerners or other outsiders, no matter their good intentions, but with insiders and members of the cultures in which the practices take place. Judith Van Allen, writing in Women's Review of Books, states simply: "For anyone seeking to understand FGM [female genital mutilation] and the controversy surrounding it, for anyone looking for ways to act against FGM, this book is an excellent guide."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Archives of Sexual Behavior, August, 2003, Joseph LoPiccolo, review of Genital Cutting and Transnational Sisterhood: Disputing U.S. Polemics, p. 390.

College Literature, June, 1995, Madhu Dubey, review of Theorizing Black Feminisms: The Visionary Pragmatism of Black Women, p. 161.

Signs, winter, 1997, Claudia Tate, review of Theorizing Black Feminisms, p. 462.

Women's Review of Books, December, 1994, Patricia Hill Collins, review of Theorizing Black Feminisms, p. 32; December, 2002, Judith Van Allen, review of Genital Cutting and Transnational Sisterhood.