Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women

Contact

Brown University
Providence, RI 02912
Ph. 401-863-2643
Fx. 401-863-1298
http://www.pembrokecenter.org
Pembroke_Center@brown.edu


Founded in 1981, the Pembroke Center supports interdisciplinary research and teaching across the humanities, social sciences, and creative arts at Brown University. With a focus on the human cost and potential of social change, the center’s research agenda has a transnational perspective that includes the global south. We examine the circulation of bodies and markets, technologies, and transnational labor. In a related vein, the Center investigates questions of representation, values, and the production of knowledge as issues in their own right and as methodological tools. The scope of the Center's research activities will continue to expand to deal with fields such as international public health, legal studies, the history of science and medicine, and new media studies. All of these research initiatives are firmly linked to our commitment to the training of undergraduate and graduate students.

The Center's research framing is not solely on gender but rather on difference. We draw here also on literary and artistic representations of difference, on investigations into forms of meaning, as well as into values and ethics. In a theoretical vein, we examine critical approaches to how difference operates in texts, media, and arts. We draw on qualitative research methods and critical theory from the humanities, social sciences, and gender studies.

We are interested in how the arts, public culture, and local media interpret global issues for local audiences, affecting social action and politics. We are interested in the difference that historical context, culture, and social relations make for the way that transnational issues actually play out in different parts of the world in practical ways. We examine the often-neglected social relations that mediate change -- how families, communities, transnational networks, non-governmental organizations, and institutions of all sorts operate in this globalized world. Our qualitative approach focuses on social relations, rather than the aggregate character of populations with abstract individuals as the unit of measurement. By contrast, we resituate individuals socially and historically and pay attention to their wider contexts and actions as meaning makers.

Our model draws on collaborative research in the sciences where it is more common for distinctive fields to collaborate on issues of common concern. The Center's research activities bring scholars and postdoctoral fellows from all over the world to work with Brown faculty and students from a variety of disciplines on global issues that call for interdisciplinary understanding. The Pembroke Seminar, a year-long forum bringing together faculty, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and select undergraduates to interrogate a common set of issues, is a continuing site of critical scholarship and intellectual excitement. Recent topics have included nature and the cultural other, identity and psychoanalysis, the language of victimization, new forms of health activism, markets and bodies, humanitarianism, the language of governance and expertise, and the question of consent.

What makes the Center unique is its emphasis on an evolving agenda of transnational problems addressed through sustained study in a variety of forums: year-long research seminars, conferences, graduate and undergraduate courses, lecture series, roundtables, and longer research initiatives. Departmental faculty, committed to research collaborations that involve different disciplines, play an active role in deciding which particular issues are pursued. Undergraduates and graduate students take active roles in these scholarly activities.

The Pembroke Center also sponsors Brown's undergraduate concentration on Gender and Sexuality Studies, the prominent journal of feminist cultural studies differences, the Nanjing-Brown Joint Program in Gender Studies and the Humanities, the Feminist Theory Papers, the Christine Dunlap Farnham Archives on nineteenth and twentieth-century Brown and Rhode Island women and their organizations, and annual commencement forums. A core focus of the Pembroke Center Associates, a group of alumnae/i, parents, and friends who support the work of the Pembroke Center, is to honor the legacy of Pembroke College in Brown University and women's historical efforts to gain access to higher education.

Recently Posted

Chinese Women's Documentaries in the Market Era: Film Festival and Symposium Network Event
Chinese Women’s Documentaries in the Market EraFilm Festival and SymposiumFilm Festival March...

Award Winning Theater: A Conversation with with Lynn Nottage and Adam Bock Network Event
Brown University alumnae/i continue to take the theater world by storm, capturing some of theater's...

Newsletter of the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women at Brown University Resource
Our annual research newsletter includes:a profile of Iranian lawyer, scholar, and activist...

Employment Opportunities

Residential Postdoctoral Fellowships, Pembroke Center Brown University
Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - 4:41pm

Principal Staff

Director
Kay Warren
Ph. 401-863-3892
Kay_Warren@Brown.edu

Christy Law Blanchard, Director of Program Outreach and Development
Ph. 401-863-3650
E-mail: Christy_Law_Blanchard@Brown.edu

Denise Davis, Managing Editor, differences
Ph. 401-863-1211
E-mail: differences@Brown.edu

Donna Goodnow, Center Manager
Ph. 401-863-2643
E-mail: Donna_Goodnow@Brown.edu

Wendy Korwin, Archivist
Ph. 401-863-6268
E-mail: Wendy_Korwin@brown.edu

Martha Hamblett, Programs and Stewardship Coordinator
Ph. 401-863-3433
E-mail: Martha_Hamblett@Brown.edu

Deborah Weinstein, Assistant Director and Director of Gender & Sexuality Studies
Ph. 401-863-3585
E-mail: Debbie_Weinstein@Brown.edu



Areas of Expertise:

Leadership in Education

Member Experts:


Projects & Campaigns

Advancing Innovative Research

The Pembroke Center's interdisciplinary research programs, curriculum, publications, lectures, and public events advance scholarship across the humanities and social sciences.  Our richly international and cross-cultural research programs explore issues involving women's lives on the global stage. 

Teaching Students 

The Center is home to Brown University's Gender and Sexuality Studies program, which examines the construction of gender and sexuality in social, cultural, political, economic, and scientific contexts.

Research Initiative



Click here for additional information

 2011-12 Pembroke Seminar:  The Question of Consent

 

The idea of consent has always been fundamental to the notion of a just and democratic order. It isat the core of the social contract, indeed of any legal contract, thereby presupposing a freeindividual capable of engaging in contractual agreements. Consent is at the basis of liberalism and of a free economy. In this sense, consent is tightly linked to the idea of desires that can be met by way of claims made on the basis of natural, political, or ethical rights.

At the same time, it has been argued that consent historically carries with it another, darker sphere. How to understand the notion of freely given “consent” when it leads to the subject’s exclusion, exploitation, or injury of some sort? How to think about the conditions under which people participate in their own subjugation, whether in an economic-political context, or in private and sexual contexts? How to explore the question of repression, in both the political and psychoanalytic senses?

This seminar will explore the complicated relations that the idea of consent evokes: is it the promise or fulfillment of a desire, or a submission to boundaries? Does it speak to contractual obligations and rights, or does it invoke the specter of ideology, of blindness, and therefore of an unfulfilled promise? Does consent speak to the fulfillment of desires and fantasies,or does it instead use those same fantasies and desires to harmful ends? Is consent founded in some residue of biological/neurological mechanisms that protect the human species; does it find an adequate place in a “survival of the fittest” paradigm, or does it belong, after all, in the enlightened realm of reason?

Finally, if the idea of consent has been fundamental to the notion of a free and democratic society, it has also functioned as an organizing principle of what we think of as knowledge: free enquiry, free speech, and the organization of many different knowledges into distinctive domains. Indeed, the very idea of free consent has been predicated on the possibility that multiple knowledges may in fact exist – and maybe should exist.

Chinese Women’s Documentaries in the Market Era
Film Festival and Symposium

Film Festival
March 17-18, 2012
Cable Car Cinema
204 South Main Street, Providence

Symposium
March 21, 2012, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute
111 Thayer Street, Providence

Chinese Women’s Documentaries in the Market Era will screen and examine important documentary films by Chinese Women directors from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mainland China. The symposium will feature directors and international scholars who will discuss the role and significance of women’s documentary films in articulating different human concerns, critical visions, and visual aesthetics in the rapidly changing Greater China area. Directors confirmed to attend include:

Ho Chao-ti (My Fancy High Heels, 2010)
Tammy Cheung (Election, 2008)
Lee Ching-hui (Money and Honey, 2011)
Shi Tou (Women 50 Minutes, 2006)
Miao Wang (Beijing Taxi, 2010)
Feng Yan (Bing Ai, 2007)

These Chinese women directors have made some of the most important and influential documentaries of the past decade on issues relating to the female self, sexuality, social migrations and transformations, and history. The symposium will explore these and other issues. Scholars to present include:

Hongwei Bao, Assistant Professor, Nottingham Trent University
Sylvia Lin, Associate Professor of Literature, University of Notre Dame
Tze-lan Sang, Associate Professor of Chinese Literature, University of Oregon
Qin Shao, Professor of History, The College of New Jersey
Louisa Wei Shiyou, Associate Professor, School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong
Lu Xinyu, Professor of Journalism, Fudan University

Films to be screened include:

About Love, 2012 (directed by Tammy Cheung)
Beijing Taxi, 2010 (directed by Miao Wang)
Bing Ai, 2007 (directed by Feng Yan)
My Fancy High Heels, 2010 (directed by Ho Chao-ti)
Money and Honey, 2011 (directed by Lee Ching-hui)
Women 50 Minutes, 2006 (directed by Shi Tou)

Reports & Resources

Scholarly Journal

differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies

Newsletter

Pembroke Center Research Newsletter

Pembroke Center Associates Newsletter

 
Online Exhibits

Exhibits from the Feminist Theory Papers and Christine Dunlap Farnham Archives 

 

 

Center News

Feminist Theory Papers Archive Expands
Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 4:12pm

 The Feminist Theory Papers is an archival collection of the papers of scholars who have changed the intellectual landscapes of universities in the United States and internationally.  Established by the Pembroke Center, the collection offers a rare perspective on the rigorous interdisciplinary work that brought feminism to the vanguard of academic research.  In the last thirty years, feminist thinkers have examined and challenged entrenched patterns of thinking by articulating questions of difference and identity and by exploring the complexities of cultural practice.  These same scholars have also been responsible for profound intellectual changes not limited to feminist theory.  

The collection now houses the papers of fourteen scholars, and has commitments from more than one hundred additional scholars to donate papers in the future.   Each collection contains a unique set of documents representing that scholar's contributions to feminist theory as well as to her discipline and, in some cases, to political work and institution building.  Examples of the research documents include correspondence, research notes, manuscript drafts, syllabi, and other relevant materials. 

Please visit or website for more information about the Feminist Theory Papers.
Kay Warren Appointed Incoming Director of Pembroke Center
Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 3:48pm

Anthropologist Kay Warren Appointed Director of the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women

The Pembroke Center, celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2011, is expanding its support of path-breaking research that spans the humanities, social sciences, and creative arts.

Anthropologist Kay Warren, the Charles C. Tillinghast Jr. ’32 Professor of International Studies and professor of anthropology, has been appointed director of the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women.

“Since its inception in 1981, the Pembroke Center has played a crucial role in advancing research and teaching on gender, and more generally on the notion of difference,” said Rajiv Vohra, dean of the faculty. “The center has been developing a richly international and cross-cultural research perspective. Professor Warren’s interests make her ideally suited to provide leadership as the Pembroke director.”

Warren, a cultural anthropologist, joined the Brown faculty in 2003 as professor of anthropology and international studies, based at the Watson Institute. She directed the Watson’s Politics, Culture, and Identity Program and pursued her own research interests in culture, violence, and peace processes; international law and human trafficking; and gender and politics. In 2009-10 she directed a year-long Pembroke seminar titled “Markets and Bodies in Transnational Perspective.”

“The Pembroke Center has long been interested in critical theory and representations of difference — the histories of these constructions, the power of media and artistic expressions, and the ways difference becomes a political and social tool,” Warren said. “The Pembroke Center’s growing attention to transnational issues and the benefits and risks of change build on the Center’s longstanding intellectual engagement with issues of difference.”

Under Warren’s directorship, the Pembroke Center’s research programs will continue to pursue the ironies and complexities of the emergence of new social media, the arts and humanities as sites of cultural critique, the circulation of new health technologies, and hostile responses to international labor migration. The Center’s approach will continue to be intensely interdisciplinary and global in scope.

“I think the range of what people can do at the Pembroke Center is only limited by people’s imaginations,” Warren said. “Our agenda is very open-ended, given the diversity and talents of the faculty — from the humanities, social sciences, creative arts, and life sciences – who work with us. This collaborative environment expands the concerns that people can bring to the Center, and we welcome new involvement from faculty and students.”

Warren is on sabbatical for the 2010-11 year, completing work on her next book, Human Trafficking, Transnationalism, and the Law. Although she will remain involved in planning and fundraising for the Pembroke Center, Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg, associate professor of comparative literature and Italian studies, will oversee day-to-day operations as acting director while Warren is on leave.
2011-2012 Pembroke Center Postdoctoral Fellowships "The Question of Consent"
Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - 12:00pm

The Idea of consent has always been fundamental to the notion of a just and democratic order. Consent is tightly linked to the idea of desires that can be met by way of claims made on the basis of natural, poltical, or ethical rights.

The Pembroke Center seeks applicants to address these issues from a variety of perspectives.
For additional information please click here!

Opportunities, Grants & Fellowships

Postdoctoral Fellowships

The Pembroke Center annually supports three or four postdoctoral research fellows in residence for an academic year. Candidates who do work that is qualitative and humanistic in nature are drawn from the humanities, the social sciences, and the life sciences. Fellows may not hold a tenured position. The Center has an annual research focus.
 
To Apply as a Postdoctoral Fellow
 
Click here for application and deadline information

For questions or for additional information, contact Donna_Goodnow@brown.edu.
 
 
 
Graduate Fellowships

There are two different ways graduate students may participate in the Pembroke Seminar:

  1. Apply to take the seminar for course credit.
    Register for GNSS 2010, 2020. Research Seminar: Advanced Topics in Feminist Theory. Permission is required.
    A limited number of graduate students may participate in the Pembroke Seminar for course credit. There is no stipend in this category.

     
  2. Apply for non-credit participation as a Graduate Student Fellow. Graduate students who do not need or want course credit and who have research interests related to the upcoming Pembroke Seminar topic may apply. Up to three students will be selected. Each Graduate Student Fellow will receive a research stipend of $1,000 for two semesters of participation.

Applications must include the following items:

  • A three-page description of your research project, including a brief representative bibliography
  • A brief letter of support from a faculty member who knows your work
  • An information sheet indicating your current year, department, and (if relevant) your dissertation director
  • Indicate whether you are applying to be a fellow or to take the seminar for course credit
 
 
 
Undergraduate Fellowships
 
There are two different ways undergraduate students may participate in the Pembroke Seminar:
  1. Register for GNSS 2010, 2020. Research Seminar: Advanced Topics in Feminist Theory. Permission is required. A limited number of undergraduate students may participate in the Pembroke Seminar for course credit.
     
  2. Undergraduates who will be in their 5th semester or above in the fall are invited to apply to be Fellows in next year's seminar; a limited number will be selected. Undergraduate Student Fellows will receive a research stipend of $1,000 for two semesters of participation.
Applications must include the following items:
  • A brief description of your background in the seminar topic, and a three-page detailed discussion of your interest in the topic
  • A brief letter of support from a faculty member who knows your work
  • An information sheet indicating your current semester and concentration
 
 
 
For more information
 
Donna Goodnow
401-863-2643
Donna_Goodnow@Brown.edu
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Multimedia

Video

The Hip Hop Wars
See video
The Hip Hop Wars, Lecture by Professor Tricia Rose

In her recent book, THE HIP HOP WARS: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop-And Why It Matters, Professor Rose voices a call for revitalization of the progressive, creative heart of hip hop, which has increasingly become defined by one thin slice of a varied, complex genre. While "conscious rappers" such as Talib Kweli and The Roots may receive enormous critical acclaim, it's the rappers who employ what Rose calls the "gansta-pimp-ho trinity"- such as T.I. and 50 Cent-who sell the most records and dominate the recording industry, TV, film, and radio. As a result, the most visible and widely-consumed hip hop sets forth a troubled vision of ghetto street life that defines young, at-risk black men and women to each other and also to a large white audience (seventy percent of hip hop consumers are white). After exploring how hip hop has become the primary means by which we talk about race and culture in the United States, Rose offers six guiding principles for progressive hip hop creativity, consumption, and community, ending the "blame hip hop vs. explain hip hop" wars and promoting critical conversations that inspire transformational music as well as social justice for all.