Copyright (c) 2009 All rights reserved. http://works.bepress.com/joel_halpern Recent documents in Joel Halpern en-us Wed, 16 Sep 2009 06:48:56 PDT 3600 http://works.bepress.com/joel_halpern/93 http://works.bepress.com/joel_halpern/93 Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:56:43 PDT Filipovic's contributions to Balkan ethnology were unusual in their number and importance. His bibliography contains about 380 items, including a number of papers in languages other than Serbo-Croatian. His death came suddenly on April 22, 1969, in a period of great scholarly productivity and during the completion of his magnum opus on the ethnology of Serbia. Joel Halpern http://works.bepress.com/joel_halpern/92 http://works.bepress.com/joel_halpern/92 Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:04:02 PDT The images which appear here are, unless otherwise indicated, are copyright Joel M. Halpern and taken from the catalog of an exhibition entitled The Thin Veneer; the Peoples of Bosnia and their Disappearing Cultural Heritage (Copyright 1997, University of Massachusetts Amherst and used by permission). Copies of the catalog are available for $ 6.00 including postage, from: Betsy Siersma, Director, University Art Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01002. Part of this presentation is also available online at http://www.h-net.org/~sae/halpern/photos.html. Joel Halpern Bosnia http://works.bepress.com/joel_halpern/91 http://works.bepress.com/joel_halpern/91 Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:56:03 PDT It clearly takes a certain period to reflect on a singular experience in one's life. In the May 1996 issue of AnthroWatch I reported on my winter visit to Sarajevo and Mostar, the two principle towns in Bosnia. I want to begin to approach an evaluation of this situation through a personal lens. Perhaps for some anthropologists their field experiences have been distanced from war and conflict. But this has not been my experience. Rather my anthropological journeys have been contextualized by major conflicts. I first went to the Balkans in 1953, and researched, principally in Serbia, for my Columbia doctorate. This was then only some eight years after World War II and memories of the conflict were still vivid to the villagers among whom I worked. But conflict was not then the focus on my research. Even if I had wanted to make it so such an approach was impeded by the dictatorial structures in place in the then lito's Yugoslavia. Formal queries on this topic would have also put villagers at risk. Joel Halpern Yugoslavia Bosnia http://works.bepress.com/joel_halpern/90 http://works.bepress.com/joel_halpern/90 Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:44:58 PDT Conrad Maynadier Atensberg died on February 10, 1997. Connie, as he was known to his legions of students, colleagues and friends, was 86. Connie's work was key to the development of anthropology as a natural science in a hierarchy with the other natural sciences, each with its own specific unit of observation-that of anthropology being human interaction. Joel Halpern http://works.bepress.com/joel_halpern/89 http://works.bepress.com/joel_halpern/89 Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:06:35 PDT This is the fourth in the series of articles on peasants in the Biennial Review (see also 150, 137, 10). It places particular stress on publications that tend to generalize and synthesize. A main emphasis is to see peasant studies from the viewpoint of other disciplines, as well as from the perspective of the societal context in which American anthropology itself exists. Specific geographical areas are dealt with in concluding summaries. Joel Halpern http://works.bepress.com/joel_halpern/88 http://works.bepress.com/joel_halpern/88 Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:57:30 PDT This paper seeks to relate changing individual life cycles to changing cycles of family development. My data refer specifically to Yugoslavia (although it is hoped that some of the points made will have more general applicability). Within Yugoslavia primary reference is to a village in central Serbia which I have studied intermittently over the past twenty years, but comparative data will be presented from other regions as well. Joel Halpern Yugoslavia Serbia http://works.bepress.com/joel_halpern/87 http://works.bepress.com/joel_halpern/87 Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:36:45 PDT To understand fully the meaning of contemporary population movements a view of the past is essential. In the period after World War II in the Balkans, mass population movements within countries have been influenced particularly by urban industrial developments. These reflect a delayed process when compared with Western Europe. Within the past decade and a half there has also been a movement of workers from the Balkan countries with open borders - Greece and Yugoslavia - to the labor-deficit countries of Western Europe. These population movements relate not only to altered individual social and economic value systems, but also to questions of ethnic identity. We are too close to these events to delineate them in a comprehensive manner, as both processes are ongoing. However, we can gain needed perspective by viewing them in the context of earlier mass movements, whether unique or regular movements. Joel Halpern Yugoslavia http://works.bepress.com/joel_halpern/86 http://works.bepress.com/joel_halpern/86 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:46:39 PDT The following narrative has been excerpted from an account by a pravoslavni (Eastern Orthodox Christian) peasant from a village in the hills above Struga, near Lake Ohrid. It is especially interesting for historical perspective on the social ties and obligations between Orthodox and Moslem villagers, often members of the same village community, particularly with regard to the carrying out of pecalba, the migrant labor pattern characteristic of this region. Joel Halpern Macedonia http://works.bepress.com/joel_halpern/85 http://works.bepress.com/joel_halpern/85 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:16:16 PDT This brief essay is written at the time of the end of the American election of November 2000. From the perspective of the history Jews in the United States one of the significant aspects of this election has been that for the first time in history there has been a Jewish candidate on the ballot. Joseph Lieberman, the Senator from Connecticut, has been the candidate of the Democratic Party for Vice-President. Not only is Joseph Lieberman of Jewish background but also, more remarkably, he is a practicing Orthodox Jew. At the same time, in this very close and contested election, there has developed a dispute about the voter count in the area of Miami. This is an intensely ethnic area populated, in part, by retired middle-class Jews from the north, many from the New York City metropolitan area. Also in adjoining areas are communities of African-Americans and Hati-Americans where similar voting problems have occurred. These matters will soon be footnotes to an important historical event, the contested presidential election of 2000, however, the point is readily apparent, namely that ethnic voting preferences remain very much part of the core concerns of contemporary American history. As of this writing these matters have not become part of race, religious or ethic hatred. This is true at least in terms of opinions, attitudes and actions that have been publicly expressed. Joel Halpern Judaic Studies http://works.bepress.com/joel_halpern/84 http://works.bepress.com/joel_halpern/84 Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:44:37 PDT This article deals with the difficulties encountered by Jozef Obrebski when he immigrated from Poland after World War II. He went first to England where he gave a series of lectures at Oxford University. Then he went to Jamaica under a contract sponsored by the British Colonial Office. Subsequently he moved to New York City where he obtained a job working at the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations. He ended his career at C .W. Post College, a small undergraduate institution near New York City. This article documents how he failed to make a career in the United States. His lack of success is attributed primarily to his failure to publish any of his research findings. However, he did preserve all of his field notes, which provide a rich resource for contemporary researchers. Joel Halpern Macedonia