Dr. James Stewart is a Professor Emeritus at Penn State University. He previously served as Vice Provost for Educational Equity and Director of the Black Studies Program. Currently he is the Director of the Black Economic Research Center for the 21st Century and a Senior Fellow at the Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy at the New School (NYC). His most recent monograph, Higher Flight, Refocusing Black/Africana Studie for the 21st Century, is a sequel to his 2005 publication, Flight in Search of Vision. Stewart is also the co-author of the widely used introductory text, Introduction to African American Studies, Transdiscicplinary Approaches and Implications. He has authored, co-authored, edited or co-edited ten other monographs, including: Black Families: Interdisciplinary Perspectives; The Housing Status of Black Americans; Research on The African-American Family: A Holistic Perspective; Blacks in Rural America; W.E.B. Du Bois on Race and Culture: Philosophy, Politics and Poetics; African-Americans and Post-Industrial Labor Markets; African Americans and the U.S. Economy; and Message in the Music: Hip Hop History and Pedagogy. Stewart has also published over sixty-five articles in Economics and Africana Studies professional journals. He is a previous editor of The Review of Black Political Economy and a past President of the National Economic Association, the National Council for Black Studies, and the Association for the Study of African American Life and History.

Stewart’s international experience includes visits to colleges and universities in various Burundi, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Niger, Republic of the Congo, South Africa, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe as an official representative of Penn State. He has had significant impact on the development of Africana Studies through service as an external reviewer or consultant for more than 25 Africana Studies departments and programs.