The Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women was established in 1981 at

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts ...

, as an interdisciplinary research center focused on

gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most culture ...

and women. In addition to research, the center is home to archives of feminist theory and women's history as well as Brown's undergraduate Gender and Sexuality Studies concentration. Postcolonial theorist

Leela Gandhi Leela Gandhi (born 1966) is an Indian-born literary and cultural theorist who is noted for her work in postcolonial theory. She is currently the John Hawkes Professor of Humanities and English and director of the Pembroke Center for Teaching a ...

, is the Center's director, having assumed the position in July 2021. The Pembroke Center was named in honor of Pembroke College in Brown University, Brown's former coordinate women's college. It is affiliated with Brown's Sarah Doyle Center for Women and Gender.

History

In 1981, a decade following Brown's merger with Pembroke College, the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women was established. Joan Wallach Scott served as the center's founding director. The Center was initially supported by the Ford Foundation, the

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

, and the Rockefeller Foundation, though it now supports its programs largely through its own endowment. In 2008, the Nanjing-Brown Joint Program in Gender Studies and the Humanities was established as a joint program between the Pembroke Center,

Nanjing University Nanjing University (NJU; ) is a national public research university in Nanjing, Jiangsu. It is a member of C9 League and a Class A Double First Class University designated by the Chinese central government. NJU has two main campuses: the Xian ...

and Brown's Cogut Center and East Asian Studies department. The same year, the center moved from Alumnae Hall to Pembroke Hall, following the building's renovation by architect

Toshiko Mori Toshiko Mori (born 1951) is a Japanese architect and the founder and principal of New York-based Toshiko Mori Architect, PLLC and Vision Arc. She is also the Robert P. Hubbard Professor in the Practice of Architecture at the Harvard University Gra ...

. In 2016, the Center established the

Black Feminist Black feminism is a philosophy that centers on the idea that "Black women are inherently valuable, that lack women'sliberation is a necessity not as an adjunct to somebody else's but because our need as human persons for autonomy." Race, gen ...

Theory Project, which focuses on rotating professorships and scholars in residence. The Pembroke Center received a $5 million gift in June 2021, permanently endowing the Center's directorship. The announcement of the gift coincided with Leela Gandhi's appointment as director.

Directors

* Joan Wallach Scott (1981–1985) *

Barbara A. Babcock Barbara Allen Babcock (July 6, 1938 – April 18, 2020) was the Judge John Crown Professor of Law, Emerita, at Stanford Law School. She was an expert in criminal and civil procedure and was a member of the Stanford Law School faculty from 1972 ...

(1986–1987) * Karen Newman (1987–1993) * Ellen Rooney (1992–2000) * Elizabeth Weed (2000–2010) * Kay Warren (2011–2014) * Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg (2014–2021) *

(2021–)

Research and teaching

The Pembroke Center offers a broad range of research, teaching, and alumnae/i programs. The Center's work to preserve the history of women at Brown and in Rhode Island and feminist theory scholarship has produced the Christine Dunlap Farnham Archive and the Feminist Theory Archive.

Concentration

In fall 2006, the

gender studies Gender studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing gender identity and gendered representation. Gender studies originated in the field of women's studies, concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics. The field n ...

program merged with the concentration in Sexuality and Society to form the Gender and Sexuality Studies Program. Gender and Sexuality Studies is an interdisciplinary concentration that examines the construction of gender and sexuality in social, cultural, political, economic, or scientific contexts. Each concentrator will focus on a well-defined topic or question and work closely with a concentration advisor to develop a program that investigates this focus area rigorously and supplements it with foundational courses in the relevant disciplines. Typical areas of focus might include the acculturation of

, sexuality and race in American politics or activism; the construction of sexual and gendered identities in educational institutions or in various forms of visual media; a contrast between different cultural understandings of sexual identity, a particular national

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to ...

and

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

Pembroke seminar

The weekly Pembroke Seminar brings together Pembroke Center postdoctoral fellows, faculty research fellows, graduate fellows, other interested Brown faculty and selected students, affiliated visiting scholars, and distinguished guest lecturers. The research themes of the seminar change annually.

Postdoctoral fellowships

The Pembroke Center annually supports three or four postdoctoral research fellows in residence for an academic year.

Scholarly publication

'' Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies'' was established in 1989 at the moment of a critical encounter of theories of difference (primarily continental) and the politics of diversity (primarily American). The journal provides a critical forum where the problematic of differences is explored in texts ranging from the literary and the visual to the political and social. ''differences'' highlights theoretical debates across the disciplines that address the ways concepts and categories of difference (notably but not exclusively gender) operate within culture. It is published three times a year by

Duke University Press Duke University Press is an academic publisher and university press affiliated with Duke University. It was founded in 1921 by William T. Laprade as The Trinity College Press. (Duke University was initially called Trinity College). In 1926 ...

Pembroke Center archives

Housed in the John Hay Library, the Christine Dunlap Farnham Archive focus on 19th and 20th-century Brown and Rhode Island women and their organizations. In addition to correspondence, diaries, photographs,

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, spor ...

s, yearbooks, and

memorabilia A souvenir (), memento, keepsake, or token of remembrance is an object a person acquires for the memories the owner associates with it. A souvenir can be any object that can be collected or purchased and transported home by the traveler as a ...

, it also includes a collection of oral history tapes and videos. The materials on women are located throughout the University archives and special collections. There is a 500-page ''Research Guide'' to the Christine Dunlap Farnham Archive which includes more than 1,000 entries describing the collection. The Feminist Theory Archive, established in 2003 with the papers of the late Naomi Schor, preserves the legacies of prominent scholars of women, gender and sexuality. Its mission is to collect, arrange, describe, preserve, and make accessible the work of leading feminist theorists beginning in the 1960s. The archive holds the papers of a number of noted academics, including Silvia Federici,

Anne Fausto-Sterling Anne Fausto-Sterling ( Sterling; born July 30, 1944) is an American sexologist who has written extensively on the biology of gender, sexual identity, gender identity, gender roles, and intersexuality. She is the Nancy Duke Lewis Professor Emeri ...

, Jacqueline Bhabha,

Lauren Berlant Lauren Gail Berlant (October 31, 1957 – June 28, 2021) was an American scholar, cultural theorist, and author who is regarded as "one of the most esteemed and influential literary and cultural critics in the United States." Berlant was the Ge ...

, and Seyla Benhabib.

Pembroke Center Associates

The Pembroke Center Associates is a membership organization that was founded in 1983 to secure the programs of the Center. It is a group of dedicated alumnae/i and friends who offer engaging programs to alumnae/i, students, and the community; publicize Pembroke Center activities through a newsletter, the Pembroke Center Associates and other publications; present the ''Leadership for Change through Education Award'' to leaders who have made a difference through education; and support the academic and research programs of the Pembroke Center through their annual membership contributions. In addition, the Associates has established a financial endowment that augments the Center's budget. The Associates also sponsor a forum on commencement week-end on topics of interest to alumni. The Pembroke Center Associates Council is the advisory board of the Associates. Members of the council are elected annually on a rotating basis for three-year terms. The Council, which meets three times a year on the Brown campus, is composed of committees that recommend initiatives for action by the Associates.

References

External links

*
Nanjing-Brown Joint Program in Gender Studies and the Humanities
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pembroke Center For Teaching And Research On Women Brown University 1981 establishments in Rhode Island Feminism and education