For information of Ballads@Mailbase list members:

This email list is associated with an international network of ballad
scholars, which was constituted in the 1960s as the 'Ballad
Commission' of the 'International Society of Ethnology and Folklore',
known by the French acronym SIEF. (Many of you are not 'ballad 
scholars', and that's fine, by the way....:)

SIEF was a shadowy entity for many years, and the Ballad Commission
- with its annual conferences and series of publications - was one of SIEF's
most active components. Now SIEF is being relaunched. The following
is a statement about SIEF, with information about recent and planned
conferences, publications, website, and membership.

The message is forwarded from the H-SAE list, which (by the way) is
highly recommended as a source of announcements, reviews, job
adverts etc. It is run by the Society for the Anthropology of Europe
(based in the USA). For more information on the SAE and H-SAE list,
contact Tony Galt or visit the website - details given at the end of
this message (do not contact me!)

Regards
Tom Cheesman


------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date:          Sun, 8 Nov 1998 10:02:45 -0600
Reply-to:      An H-Net List for the Society for the Anthropology of Europe 
               <[log in to unmask]> 
From:          Tony Galt <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:       FYI: Reconstitution of SIEF/Congress April 2001
To:            [log in to unmask]

Reconstitution of SIEF and SIEF Congress in Budapest, April 2001

 In the 1960s, during the height of the Cold War, European ethnologists
and folklorists sought to strengthen or newly create fora which would
permit pan-European scholarly exchange.  Continued contact between
colleagues in Western European and then Communist Eastern European states
was considered particularly crucial, and during a congress of
anthropological and ethnological sciences in Athens it was decided to
found a new association specifically concerned with European ethnology and
folklore.  Among the primary initial goals of SIEF (Societ=E9 International=
e
d'Ethnologie et du Folklore) was the regular organization of international
congresses which would bring Soviet and Eastern European ethnologists
together with their Western colleagues.  A new journal, Ethnologia
Europaea, was also founded which was initially published under the
auspices of SIEF, and which continues publication independently.  The
journal's first volume, published in 1967, assembles profiles of how
ethnology was practiced and taught in different European nations, so as to
facilitate intellectual collaboration in the future.  The journal is
presently published by Museum Tusculanum Press, Univerisity of Copenhagen,
Njalsgade 12, DK-2300 Copenhagen S., Denmark.  Its new editor, as of Sept.
1998, is Peter Niederm=FCller, Berlin.

 During the following three decades, it was particularly the special
sections of SIEF which met regularly, while the society as a whole met in
irregular intervals.  Most consistently active were the ballad commission
and the commission devoted to the the annual publication of_the
"volkskundliche Bibliographie"(folklore and ethnology bibliography).=20
There is also a section devoted to folk religion, and a foodways section
has met with increasing regularity as well. In 1998, a section devoted to
intercultural communication was initiated.  The last decade brought
enormous political as well as economic changes in Europe.  This prompted
SIEF to reconsider its mission.  The 5th international SIEF congress was
held in 1994 in Vienna, addressing the question of ethnicity in the newly
configuring Europe.  The plenary papers were published in German in 1995
(Ethnologia Europeae: SIEF Wien 1994, ed. by Klaus Beitl and Olaf
Bockhorn; the volume can be ordered from the Institut f=FCr
Volkskunde/Europ=E4ische Ethnologie, Hanuschgasse 3, A-1010 Vienna).  This
theme was continued under the heading "Roots and Rituals: Managing
Ethnicity" at the 6th SIEF congress in April 1998 in Amsterdam.

Co-organized by Herman Roodenburg and the Department of European Ethnology
of Amsterdam's Meertens Institute, the congress assembled an interesting
mix of participants from all areas of Europe, as well as the USA and South
America.  The different disciplinary orientations and intellectual
paradigms brought together illustrated the potential inherent in SIEF as
an arena for conceptual exchange. Two book publications based on this
conference are planned to be published within the year.  One volume, to be
edited by Regina Bendix and Herman Roodenburg, will contain the twelve
keynote papers on theoretical aspects of ethnicity from interdisciplinary
perspectives; the other volume will be edited by Ton Dekker, John Helsloot
and Carla Wijers, and will contain some thirty case papers on ethnicity
from all over Europe, past and present.

 During the 1998 congress, the SIEF membership, presided over by its
current president Konrad K=F6stlin (University of Vienna), voted to
reconstitute the society as a more vigorous organization serving the
scholarly interests and concerns of Europeanist ethnologists and
folklorists worldwide, and addressing the social and political
transformations in Europe.  A newly constituted board is overseeing the
construction of a SIEF webpage -

http://www2.hu-berlin.de/inside/sief/

- networking with European national and regional ethnology associations and
institutions, and establishing a conference schedule.  Membership dues
were set at 20 EURO for members who are residents of EU countries, Norway,
Switzerland, USA, Canada, South American countries, Japan and Australia.=20
The reduced annual membership fee is 10 EURO for members who reside in all
other countries, or who are students, retirees, or unemployed.  Payment
may be made by inter-bank transfer, by VISA or Eurocard to the following
bank account: Volksbank Straubing (Germany), BLZ 742 900 00, Account Nr.
507 8130.  SIEF's treasurer is Dr. B=E4rbel Kleindorfer-Marx who may be
contacted at the following address: Weiherhausstrasse 20, D-93413 Cham,
Germany; Tel. +49 9971-78220, fax: +49 9971-78399.

 The 7th SIEF congress is scheduled for April 2001 in Budapest, 
Hungary.

The conference theme is currently being finalized;  further details as
well as the call for papers will be posted on the webpage and sent to
various professional newsletters.  Membership information can also be
found on the web page, or by contacting SIEF's Secretary General , Prof.
Dr. Peter Niederm=FCller, Institute for European Ethnology, Humboldt
University, Schiffbauer Damm 19, D-10117 Berlin.  Telephone: +49 30 308 74
351; fax: +49 30 308 74 380;  e-mail: [log in to unmask]
or: [log in to unmask]


Regina Bendix, Dept. of Folklore and Folklife
University of  Pennsylvania
3440 Market Street, Suite 370
Philadelphia, PA 19104-3325
[log in to unmask]


***********************************************************
A message from H-SAE, affiliated with H-Net and the
Society for the Anthropology of Europe. Have a look at our
web site at: http://h-net.msu.edu/~sae/
Editor: Tony Galt ([log in to unmask])
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