Established in 1982, the Pembroke Center Archives identifies, collects, and processes collections related to our mission: advancing the capacity for research and teaching on women, gender, and feminist scholarship in the University library system. The Archives functions in partnership with the Brown University Library. Local, national, and international scholars are welcome to visit the John Hay Library or the Pembroke Center Archives for research.
The Archives’ traditional areas of strength are feminist theory, the history of women at Brown, the history of feminist activism in Rhode Island. The Archives also has a growing number of collections that center gender, sexuality, and state repression, as exemplified by our curatorial and processing work on the Mumia Abu-Jamal papers and the Johanna Fernández papers. To learn more about these efforts, see The Brown Daily Herald.
The Archives have four strategic collecting directions.
1. The Feminist Theory Archive
The Feminist Theory Archive documents the work and lives of influential scholars who place sex and gender at the center of their theoretical study. Current collecting places a particular emphasis on Black feminist theory and thinking, as part of the Pembroke Center’s Black Feminist Theory Project.
2. Women and Gender at Brown
These collections center the lives of women and gender minorities connected to Brown University. The Pembroke Center Oral History project, as well as the related papers and personal archives of Brown community members, are housed in these collections.
3. Feminist Activism in Rhode Island
These collections document the work of feminist student groups, organizations, artists, and activists at Brown University and in the state of Rhode Island.
The Pembroke Center Archives regularly celebrates its collections and donors through exhibits, including The Lamphere Case: The Sex Discrimination Lawsuit That Changed Brown, Hortense J. Spillers: A Life Recorded, and the annual Shauna M. Stark '76, P'10 Out of the Archive event series.
4. Gender, Sexuality, and State Repression
These collections center state repression as a feminist struggle. It comprises the papers of those whose scholarship, activism, or lived experience document the intersection of gender, sexuality, and state repression, especially mass incarceration and bodily autonomy. Many of these collections overlap with our other collecting areas as this work often appears within feminist scholarship broadly and activism on campus and in Rhode Island.
For more information, email pembroke_archives@brown.edu.