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 Bay ...

, as an

interdisciplinary Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several other fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, ec ...

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 cultures u ...

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, 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 Women's colleges in higher education are undergraduate, bachelor's degree-granting institutions, often liberal arts colleges, whose student populations are composed exclusively or almost exclusively of women. Some women's colleges admit male stud ...

. It is affiliated with Brown's

Sarah Doyle Center for Women and Gender The Sarah Doyle Center for Women and Gender (SDCWG), formerly the Sarah Doyle Women's Center, is a center at Brown University, which "seeks to provide a comfortable, yet challenging place for students, faculty, and staff to examine the multitude ...

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 Joan Wallach Scott (born December 18, 1941) is an American historian of France with contributions in gender history. She is a professor emerita in the School of Social Science in the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Scott ...

served as the center's founding director. The Center was initially supported by the

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...

, 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 The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Carneg ...

, 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 Xianl ...

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

(1981–1985) * Barbara A. Babcock (1986–1987) * Karen Newman (1987–1993) * Ellen Rooney (1992–2000) * Elizabeth Weed (2000–2010) *

Kay Warren Kay Barbara Warren (born 1947) is an American academic anthropologist, known for her extensive research and publications in cultural anthropology studies. Initially trained as an anthropologist specializing in field studies of Latin American and ...

(2011–2014) *

Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg Suzanne may refer to: People * Suzanne (given name), a feminine given name (including a list of people with the name) * S. U. Zanne, pen name of August Vandekerkhove (1838–1923), Belgian writer and inventor * Suzanne, pen name of Renée Ménd ...

(2014–2021) * Leela Gandhi (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 ...

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 Human sexuality is the way people experience and express themselves sexually. This involves biological, psychological, physical, erotic, emotional, social, or spiritual feelings and behaviors. Because it is a broad term, which has varied ...

and

race Race, RACE or "The Race" may refer to: * Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species * Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...

American politics The politics of the United States function within a framework of a constitutional federal republic and presidential system, with three distinct branches that Separation of powers, share powers. These are: the United States Congress, U.S. Congre ...

or activism; the construction of sexual and gendered identities in educational institutions or in various forms of

visual media Mass media refers to a diverse array of media technologies that reach a large audience via mass communication. The technologies through which this communication takes place include a variety of outlets. Broadcast media transmit information e ...

; a contrast between different cultural understandings of

sexual identity Sexual identity is how one thinks of oneself in terms of to whom one is romantically and/or sexually attracted.
''Sex ...

, a particular national

literature Literature is any collection of 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 include ...

and

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

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 An academic year or school year is a period of time which schools, colleges and universities use to measure a quantity of study. School holiday School holidays (also referred to as vacations, breaks, and recess) are the periods during which sch ...

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 Du ...

Pembroke Center archives

Housed in the

John Hay Library The John Hay Library (known colloquially as the Hay) is the second oldest library on the campus of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is located on Prospect Street opposite the Van Wickle Gates. After its constructio ...

, the Christine Dunlap Farnham Archive focus on 19th and 20th-century Brown and Rhode Island women and their organizations. In addition to correspondence,

diaries Diaries may refer to: * the plural of diary *''Diaries: 1971-1976'', a 1981 documentary by Ed Pincus *'' Diaries 1969–1979: The Python Years'', a 2006 book by Michael Palin *''OFW Diaries ''OFW Diaries'' is a Philippine television documentary ...

photograph A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now create ...

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, sports a ...

yearbook A yearbook, also known as an annual, is a type of a book published annually. One use is to record, highlight, and commemorate the past year of a school. The term also refers to a book of statistics or facts published annually. A yearbook often ...

s, 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 m ...

, it also includes a collection of

oral history Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people wh ...

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 Silvia Federici (born in Parma, Italy, 1942) is a scholar, teacher, and feminist activist based in New York. She is a professor emerita and teaching fellow at Hofstra University in New York State, where she was a social science professor. She al ...

, Anne Fausto-Sterling, 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 Geo ...

, and

Seyla Benhabib Seyla Benhabib ( born September 9, 1950) is a Turkish-American philosopher. Seyla Benhabib is a senior research scholar and adjunct professor of law at Columbia Law School. She is also an affiliate faculty member in the Columbia University Depar ...

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 A student is a person enrolled in a school or other educational institution. In the United Kingdom and most commonwealth countries, a "student" attends a secondary school or higher (e.g., college or university); those in primary or elementary ...

, and the community; publicize Pembroke Center activities through a

newsletter A newsletter is a printed or electronic report containing news concerning the activities of a business or an organization that is sent to its members, customers, employees or other subscribers. Newsletters generally contain one main topic of int ...

, 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 A financial endowment is a legal structure for managing, and in many cases indefinitely perpetuating, a pool of financial, real estate, or other investments for a specific purpose according to the will of its founders and donors. Endowments are o ...

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 An advisory board is a body that provides non-binding strategic advice to the management of a corporation, organization, or foundation. The informal nature of an advisory board gives greater flexibility in structure and management compared to th ...

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