NEWSLETTER

August 20th, 2009

In Memory of Rhoda Halperin

Rhoda Halperin, a formidable presence in economic anthropology and one of the founders of the Center for Heritage and Archaeological Studies, died suddenly on the night of April 9th, 2009. She was a tireless worker and advocate for anthropology, a dedicated mentor of students, and a driving force in the Center.

Dr. Halperin earned her BA in Economics from Bennington College and a PhD in Anthropology from Brandeis University. She came to Montclair State University in 2004 to chair the Anthropology Department and was also Professor Emerita in the Anthropology Department of the University of Cincinnati. A cultural and economic anthropologist by training, her work is widely read by archaeologists, especially her book, Cultural Economies Past and Present (University of Texas Press 1994). Her most recent archaeological publication is “The Political Economy of Mesoamerican States: An Economic Ethnographer’s View,” in The Political Economy of Ancient Mesoamerica: Transformations during the Formative and Classic Periods, edited by Vernon Scarborough and John Clark (University of New Mexico Press, 2007).

In 2006 Dr. Halperin became a Fellow of the Society for Applied Anthropology, recognizing her work on urban development, education and the theory and practice of community heritage. Her most recent book, Whose School is It? Women, Children, Memory and Practice in the City (University of Texas Press 2006), documents the creation and implementation of a community heritage school in a diverse working class community in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her other research interests included relationships between theory and practice in urban anthropology, gender and power, medical anthropology and cultural competency, and  history and contemporary anthropological theory. She recently had been a guest editor of a volume on youth and globalization of City and Society, the American Anthropological Association journal of the Society for Urban, National and Transnational Anthropology.

2008

 March 18th, 2008

Associate Professor of Anthropology and CHAS steering committee member Dr. Peter E. Siegel has been awarded a grant of $27,100 from the National Geographic Society to continue research into the historical ecology of the Pre-Columbian Caribbean.  During the summer of 2008, Dr. Siegel and    a team of scientists and students from Montclair State University, University of Missouri, University of Cincinnati, and Washington State University will carry out paleoecological fieldwork in the Nariva Swamp along the east coast of Trinidad. This work will be integrated with last summer’s research along the west coast of Trinidad and various locations on Antigua and St. Croix. Funding for the earlier work ($90,726) was awarded by the Archaeology and Geography and Regional Sciences programs of the National Science Foundation.
 

  BACK TO HOME PAGE