Colloquia: The Genealogical Imagination

The Genealogical Imagination: Junk-DNA in the Study of (Jewish) Origins.
Monday, November 17, 2008
4:30
Museum 345

Nadia Abu El-Haj
Department of Anthropology
Barnard College/Colombia University

Prof. Abu El-Haj has held fellowships at Harvard University's Academy for International and Area Studies, the University of Pennsylvania Mellon Program, and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. She is, in addition, a former Fulbright Fellow and a recipient of awards from the SSRC-McArthur Grant in International Peace and Security, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and the National Endowment for the Humanities among others. Prior to her arrival at Barnard College and Columbia University she served on the faculty of the Anthropology Department at the University of Chicago.

In 2001 she published Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society (Chicago University Press), now in its second printing. In 2002 this book won the Middle East Studies Association's Albert Hourani Annual Book Award for the best book published on the Middle East that year (an honor it shared with Gershon Shafir and Yoav Peled's Being Israeli: the Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship).

Colloquia: Joseph Bonaparte's Point Breeze Estate

“HE WILL BE A BOURGEOIS AMERICAN AND SPEND HIS FORTUNE IN MAKING GARDENS”: A Preliminary Examination of Joseph Bonaparte's Point Breeze Estate, Bordertown, New Jersey


Richard Veit, PhD
Associate Professor of Anthropology, Monmouth University

Recent archaeological excavations in Bordentown, New Jersey, have begun to unearth the remains of Joseph Bonaparte’s palatial estate, Point Breeze. Joseph, the elder brother of Napoleon Bonaparte and former King of Spain and Naples, fled to the United States in 1815. He lived in New Jersey from 1816 until 1839. His home was a center for French refugees in America. His library and art collections were the largest in country. At Point Breeze, he entertained many of the leading intellectuals, politicians, artists, and military figures of the day. The excavations have revealed the remains of an exceptionally large structure believed to be the first mansion and a rich artifact assemblage.

Richard Veit is an Associate Professor in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University and Director of the University’s MA program in Liberal Arts. He received his Ph.D. in Historical Archaeology/Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania. His research has focused on the historical archaeology of New Jersey, particularly ethnic lives in the 18th and 19th centuries.