Home to a vibrant community of feminist scholarship and dynamic interdisciplinary research, the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women received a $5 million gift this summer 鈥� its largest donation to date 鈥� from alumnus Shauna McKee Stark 鈥�76 P 鈥�10 . The gift will work to permanently fund the Center鈥檚 director position and help support the Center鈥檚 programming.
The inaugural Shauna McKee Stark 鈥�76 P 鈥�10 Director, Professor Leela Gandhi, will begin her tenure with the Center this fall, which also marks the Center鈥檚 40th anniversary.
Gandhi began her transition into the role soon after her appointment this July, noting that throughout the process she has felt 鈥渆xtremely honored鈥� to follow in the footsteps of the prolific female scholars who have served as Pembroke Center directors before her.
Drawing inspiration from her pioneering predecessors in feminist theory, Professor Gandhi described her own vision for the Center鈥檚 growth: diversifying the center鈥檚 work and scholarship while forming it into an increasingly congenial space for intellectual exchange.
鈥淚 hope that I may be able to take Pembroke in a transnational direction,鈥� she said, adding her staunch belief that the Center鈥檚 work should be 鈥渋ntensely local鈥� in its focus on Brown鈥檚 community, while simultaneously incorporating voices from varied backgrounds across the globe.
In order to accomplish this, Gandhi pointed to several diversity initiatives that she hopes to augment during her tenure, one of which is the Black Feminist Theory Project.
Established in 2016 with the stated mission of enhancing 鈥渢he visibility and accessibility of Black feminist discourse on campus as a resource for faculty, students and the surrounding community,鈥� the program sheds light on听 activism by Black feminists at the intersections of race, gender and other issues.听 听
The project 鈥渉elps to ensure intergenerational remembering (to combat) willful ignorance and forgetting of our historical pasts,鈥� while working against 鈥渟tereotypes that denigrate Black women and deny our 鈥� cultural听richness,鈥� wrote Melaine Ferdinand-King, the project鈥檚 graduate proctor and a fourth-year PhD candidate听in Africana Studies, in an email to The Herald. The BFTP鈥檚 main work is to maintain and expand an archive on Black feminist theory and to help facilitate ongoing work by Black feminist scholars, she wrote.
In their efforts to expand the project鈥檚 reach, Ferdinand-King and her team announced receiving two major donations earlier this summer from Hazel Carby. Brown community members can get involved with the BFTP鈥檚 work through Pembroke Center announcements about future opportunities, attending BFTP-hosted lectures and generally supporting and amplifying the contributions of Black women theorists, Ferdinand-King wrote.
In addition to nurturing the BFTP鈥檚 growth, Gandhi and her administrative team are working to launch two new initiatives.
The first is an LGBTQIA+-based project that the team hopes will include a flagship course in gender and sexuality studies, a film screening and social events that will aim to grow and support scholarship in the space. Secondly, Gandhi鈥檚 team is working to form The Public Health Initiative,听 a project that will build upon previous Pembroke research seed grants to host scholars in the medical and public health fields. For instance, the initiative may examine COVID-19鈥檚 differential social impacts, specifically in the realms of domestic violence and violence against female-identifying individuals. Both the Public Health Initiative and LGBTQIA+-based project will maintain a strong focus on community outreach and empowering local voices.
In addition to these efforts, Gandhi noted her desire to help bring a 鈥済reater diversity of critical theory鈥� to the Pembroke Center, aiming to incorporate more Asian American听 and South Asian American voices into its work.
Gandhi seeks to provide scholars from a broad range of disciplines the opportunity to present several endowed lectures on questions of gender in their research. Through endeavors like this, she hopes to build the Pembroke Center into a world-renowned 鈥渞esearch destination鈥� that hosts global scholars.
Beyond central undertakings, Gandhi鈥檚 new responsibilities also include overseeing the Pembroke Seminar, which she personally taught in 2017.
The seminar is 鈥渁n interdisciplinary gathering of faculty, undergraduate and graduate students,鈥� who jointly explore the profound implications of a seemingly simple topic, such as debt or nature, said Leslie Bostrom, professor and chair of visual art, who co-teaches the seminar with Evelyn Lincoln chair of the department of history of art and architecture.
This year鈥檚 seminar, called 鈥淐olor,鈥� begins by delving into the neuroscience behind our perception of color before moving into the myriad ways that color permeates our society. This includes the impact of color on race, gender, environmental justice and law. The seminar topic finds itself at the crux of the Pembroke Center鈥檚 women鈥檚 studies, with ideas of gender, sexuality and femininity, so deeply infused into color and its connotations, that Bostrom and Lincoln find it nearly impossible to separate them.
The two professors pointed to the example of 鈥測ellow.鈥� Though it may seem like a simple color, the Pembroke Seminar leaders see much more.
Lincoln and Bostrom recall the dazzling array of contexts in which the color appears, not just in the artistic lens of Proust鈥檚 Yellow Wall and Van Gogh鈥檚 wheat fields, but also its position as a social construct in yellow journalism, yellow books and Nazism鈥檚 infamous yellow star.
But yellow is often seen as deception, historically associated with the potential falseness of outward appearances.
The social importance of color continues in current socio-cultural events. The seminar leaders pointed to the recent Texas abortion law; by deputizing citizens to turn others in, it asks people to work, as Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor called it, 鈥渦nder the color of law.鈥� This modern phrase is derived from the legal allegiances displayed in medieval European heraldry, and it is one of the modern contexts that the seminar leaders put up for discussion, Lincoln said.
鈥淐olor itself has layers and layers of meaning in human discourse, and that鈥檚 what we鈥檙e looking for,鈥� Bostrom said.
Besides her focus on specific initiatives and programming like the Pembroke Seminar, Gandhi hopes to make organic contributions to the Pembroke Center as a whole. Stating her strong belief that 鈥済oals emerge when you work together with people,鈥� Gandhi expresses her ultimate objective as the inaugural Shauna Stark 鈥�76 P 鈥�10 Director to learn from others鈥� experiences, seeing the community鈥檚 goals emerge as she works to make them a reality.
Corrections: A previous version of this article inaccurately stated that the Pembroke Center received a major donation of papers from Paula Giddings. The article also stated that this year鈥檚 Pembroke Seminar is called 鈥淐onsidering Color.鈥� In fact, the title is 鈥淐olor.鈥� The Herald regrets the errors.
