Professor Stanley's broad research interests focus upon modern and contemporary political thought, with a particular emphasis on the Enlightenment, its critics, and its contested legacy.  Her dissertation, completed in May 2006, traces the relationship between cynicism and enlightenment in the thought of eighteenth-century French writers, including Diderot, Rousseau, La Mettrie, and the authors of libertine literature.  She has also written about contemporary concerns about cynicism as the dominant, and politically corrosive, mode of consciousness in the present, and has a forthcoming article in Polity addressing this subject.  Additionally, she maintains a separate research agenda in legal theory and American constitutional law.  Within this area, she has a particular interest in the disputes surrounding the Supreme Court's development of an unenumerated constitutional right to privacy, as well as the philosophical justifications for free speech protections. 

Professor Stanley teaches classes on the history of political thought, American political thought, and public law.  She joined the faculty at the University of Memphis in the fall of 2006.