IU doctoral student in anthropology Matthew Bradley will be presenting a paper in what looks like an amazing, marathon panel on “Mississippian and Contact Period Archaeology” at the Southeastern Archaeological Conference in Knoxville. His paper is titled “What Gabriel Arthur Saw” and he will be sharing the program with many leading scholars on the the archaeology and history of the native Southeast of North America. Find the conference program here. Matthew’s work focuses on the language, culture and long-term history of his home community of Cherokee, North Carolina.

Congratulations to IU folklore graduate student Gabriel McGuire, who successfully defended his M.A. thesis on this past Friday. Gabe’s topic was “A System of Affinity: Research in the Line of Morgan’s Progression from Ancient Society through Engels to Soviet Ethnography.” The study explores the way that Lewis Henry Morgan’s anthropological work came to have such a powerful conditioning effect on Soviet ethnography in the wake of Friedrich Engels’ reworking of Morgan’s ideas. Gabe’s project, which caused him to confront Morgan’s legacy in both American and Soviet scholarship, as well as significant chunks of American and Russian intellectual history more broadly, is an outgrowth of broader work he has been doing in preparation for soon-to-be undertaken doctoral fieldwork in Kazakhstan.

Congratulations to Gabrielle Berlinger, who is the co-winner of the student essay prize awarded annually by the Jewish Folklore and Ethnology Section of the American Folklore Society, in collaboration with the Committee on the Anthropology of Jews and Judaism of the American Anthropological Association. A graduate student in the Indiana University Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, Gabi won with her essay “770 Eastern Parkway: Brooklyn Brownstone, Sacred Space.” The paper is part of her larger research project, which seeks to understand the nature and significance of contemporary Jewish architectural practices. According to prize committee chair Simon Bronner: “The committee praised its exploration of an emergent tradition and its construction by a folk group.” The paper, which looks at the worldwide replication of the Brooklyn building that is the headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement, is now slated for publication in the Jewish Cultural Studies book series.

Sharing the 2007 prize with Berlinger is Irit Koren of Bar-Ilan University, whose essay is entitled “The Power of Discourse: Issues of Gender and Social Control Regarding Changing the Jewish Wedding Ritual.”

During AY 2006-2007, Berlinger served as editorial assistant for Museum Anthropology. This semester she is pursuing her own research and coursework with the help of a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship.

The Jewish Folklore and Ethnology Section of the American Folklore Society is devoted to studies of Jewish folklore, folklife, and ethnology. It cooperates with the Committee on the Anthropology of Jews and Judaism of the American Anthropological Association. The Committee for the Anthropology of Jews and Judaism is a committee of the General Anthropology Division of the American Anthropological Association. Its purpose is to promote communication and cooperation among anthropologists interested in the study of Jews and Judaism.