The dynamism of the Friends of the Pembroke Center community is evident in the events the Friends conceive of, participate in, moderate and host on and off campus. Their programming spurs conversation on issues ranging from Black women’s political engagement and activism around suffrage, to the role of women in a changing media environment, to how French colonial authorities constructed Muslim legal difference and used it to impact full citizenship for Algerian Muslims, and much, much more.
Pembroke Center
Friends of the Pembroke Center Events
The Friends of the Pembroke Center conceptualize and sponsor public events and programming on topics that elaborate on the scholarly work and mission of the Pembroke Center.
Friends of the Pembroke Center Events
The Friends of the Pembroke Center conceptualize and sponsor public events and programming on topics that elaborate on the scholarly work and mission of the Pembroke Center.
Past Events
The carousel below features a sampling of Friends of the Pembroke Center events. Click on the arrow to view event videos, and visit our YouTube playlist for more!
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On May 4, 2022, the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women and the Providence Public Library (PPL) considered the question, “What Does Tomboy Mean to You?” Performance artist and “gender outlaw,” Kate Bornstein ’69 talked with Virginia Thomas AM’16, PhD’20, Postdoctoral Fellow at Rice University’s Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, and Janaya Kizzie, artist and the PPL’s Events and Programs Manager. Participants moved beyond stereotypes of the tomboy and instead questioned what the idea of tomboy means to them. This 2021–22 Shauna M. Stark ’76, P’10 Out of the Archive Lecture was presented with support from the Friends of the Pembroke Center.
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On March 1, 2022, the Pembroke Center’s LGBTQIA+ Thinking initiative hosted “Over the Rainbow: (Re)Considering the Pride Flag(s),” a virtual panel discussion among artists, scholars, cultural critics, educators, and members of the public that examined the popularization and symbolic use of the original rainbow pride flag as well as subsequent iterations of and alternatives to it. The panel complemented the research agenda of the 2021-2022 Pembroke Seminar “Color” and was presented with support from the Friends of the Pembroke Center.
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Held on January 12, 2021, “Complicating Beauty: A Look at How Women Look” was a Pembroke Center virtual panel featuring five distinguished Brown alumnae and faculty who explore the idea of beauty: how and why it changes over time; the unique role of the beauty pageant; and the ways that society’s morphing definitions of “a beautiful woman” collide with race, class and gender.
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Held on October 23, 2020, the panel "Black Women and the Vote" focuses on Black women’s political engagement and activism, including efforts to secure and protect voting rights, from a multidisciplinary perspective. Beginning with a discussion of the 14th Amendment as a precedent for the 19th Amendment and the work of Black women abolitionists in the 19th century, the discussion goes on to engage with early civil rights era activism, and culminates with a look at contemporary politics, including Black women’s leadership in the Democratic party and in movements for racial and gender justice. The panel was moderated by Tanya Katerí Hernández ’86, P’20, the Archibald R. Murray Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law, and a member of the Pembroke Center Advisory Council.
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On Friday, February 5, 2021, the Pembroke Center hosted a discussion of the book "Sex, Law, and Sovereignty in French Algeria, 1830–1930" by Judith Surkis '92, Professor of History at Rutgers University and the 2003-04 Nancy L. Buc '65 Postdoctoral Fellow at the Pembroke Center. In her book, which won the Association of Middle East Women’s Studies 2020 book prize, Surkis traces how colonial authorities constructed Muslim legal difference and used it to deny Algerian Muslims full citizenship. During more than a century of colonial rule over Algeria, the French state shaped and reshaped the meaning and practice of Muslim law by regulating it and circumscribing it to the domain of family law, while applying the French Civil Code to appropriate the property of Algerians. Surkis is a member of the Pembroke Center Advisory Council.
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"Voices Carry: Brown Women in Media and Entertainment" was the Pembroke Center's 2019 Commencement Forum. Featuring Brown alumnae whose exceptional achievements in entertainment and media span film, new media, television, writing and teaching, this panel shared success stories and insights into their work as well as discussed how Brown influenced their career paths. Our panelists explored the current landscape for women in these industries, including the impact of the #MeToo movement from a personal perspective, and what opportunities and changes it has and has not produced.
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On April 9, 2019, geologist Tina Neal ’81 discussed the highest-threat volcano in the United States: Hawaii’s Kīlauea Volcano, which erupted in the summer of 2018. As the Scientist in Charge of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, Neal led the Observatory during the 2018 Kīlauea eruption and summit collapse crisis, which featured historically unprecedented rates of lava effusion that destroyed hundreds of structures 40 km from the summit. At Kīlauea, months of damaging earthquakes caused the summit to collapse progressively before scientists’ astonished eyes. The event, which took place at Barnard College, was sponsored by the Friends of the Pembroke Center.