Pembroke Center

The Pembroke Center at Brown University is a feminist research center devoted to critical scholarship on the struggles faced by people across national and transnational contexts, especially those whose gender identity or sexual orientation make them targets of violence.

At the Pembroke Center, real-world questions and commitments are integral to our scholarly and research mission. We believe that redress is inextricable from questions of social, political, racial, medical, environmental and economic justice and demands an interdisciplinary approach to scholarship that can enable transformational change. 

Since its founding in 1981, the Pembroke Center has sought to confront societal challenges across borders by interrogating the underpinnings and history of the categories used to differentiate individuals and groups—including gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, citizenship and class—and how those categories intersect. Together with a demand for knowledge by and about women, women-identified, gender non-binary and LGBTQIA+ individuals, this emphasis on rigorous, fruitful questioning paves the way for new insights into perennially vexing issues, like how to achieve reproductive justice, what ethical issues arise as new technology is deployed, or the possibilities of self-sovereignty for peoples contending with the long legacies of empire or slavery.

The Pembroke Center houses an academic program in Gender and Sexuality Studies, the intergenerational and interdisciplinary Pembroke Seminar, a renowned postdoctoral fellowship program, an array of research initiatives, the Pembroke Center Archives and Pembroke Center Oral History Project, differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, public events, and international programs. We emphasize collaboration and community, and engage a broad global audience while maintaining close ties to our community of alumnae/i and friends.

We invite you to join us and to learn more about us and our programs.