The Power of the Pembroke Seminar
A Faculty Member's Perspective
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Kay Warren, the Chesler-Mallow Senior Faculty Research Fellow and Charles B. Tillinghast Jr.’32 Professor of International Studies and Professor of Anthropology is directing this year’s Pembroke Seminar. Her perspective on the Pembroke Center and its invaluable contributions to the intellectual life on campus follows. |
MESSAGE FROM PROFESSOR WARREN:
I am thrilled to express how exciting it is to lead this year’s Pembroke Seminar, which is a unique forum here at Brown, and is an important catalyst for new research at the frontiers of the humanities and social sciences. The seminar brings communities of scholars who normally don’t collaborate into conversation together. Brown faculty, visiting scholars from other schools, postdoctoral fellows, graduate and undergraduate students from a wide range of disciplines in the social sciences and humanities work together in the Pembroke Seminar to tackle challenging questions that have real world implications for us all.
If you could be a fly on the wall of one of our weekly seminars, you would see that word has gotten out around Brown that the Pembroke Seminar is the place to be. As a result, we have postdoctoral fellows from all over the University who come to the seminar for a chance to share their research in ways that advance everyone’s understanding of transnational change. You would see researchers testing ideas before they are put into print, integrating ideas across projects, and bringing contemporary theory to bear on real world problems. These scholars are working across disciplines and cultures and it is a very exciting place to be.
This year’s seminar, “Markets and Bodies in Transnational Perspective” looks at the issue of the human cost of rapidly circulating technologies and studies bodies on the move, including migrants of all sorts, such as people who cross borders in search of better jobs to support their families, women who have been trafficked, and children who are adopted internationally. The seminar also is examining medical technologies on the move and technologies in search of new international markets. Observing the impact of this circulation of medical technology and how families and communities adapt it to their own needs and concerns is transforming how we understand the body and public health.
One of our faculty fellows this year, medical anthropologist Sherine Hamdy, is analyzing decision making about organ transplantation from live donors in Egypt. Local culture, religion, national policies, and different histories mean the markets for organs are regulated in practice in different ways in different places. Professor Hamdy helped the seminar understand Egyptian families’ complex ethical decision-making concerning who in the family would be an ideal donor in the case of kidney failure, knowing that there is risk involved. Her research also raises the very important issue of whether assigning a monetary value to organs would ever be acceptable when organs are not otherwise available to individuals who might die without an organ transplant.
The Brown scholarly community owes a great debt of appreciation to those who support the Pembroke Center, which is unique at Brown in how it brings together scholars and student researchers on complex questions, and where the contributions of different disciplines open our eyes to new questions and issues, as well as different forms of analysis.
THANK YOU!
On behalf of Kay Warren and the students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty members who collaborate within the Pembroke Seminar, we thank you for your support of the Pembroke Center.