RABRENOVIC, Gordana 1957-

PERSONAL: Born 1957, in Yugoslavia; naturalized U.S. citizen. Education: University of Belgrade, B.A., 1980, M.A., 1984; State University of New York at Albany, certificate of graduate study (urban policy), 1988, Ph.D., 1990.

ADDRESSES: Office—Department of Sociology and Anthropology, College of Arts and Sciences, 571 Holmes Hall, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Yugoslavia, lecturer in social work and social policy, 1982–84; State University of New York at Albany, teaching assistant in sociology, 1985–88, lecturer in sociology, 1988–90; Northeastern University, Boston, MA, assistant professor of sociology, 1990–97, associate professor, 1997–, codirector of human service program, 1997–98, associate director of Brudnick Center for the Study of Violence and Social Conflict, 1998–. Co-president of board of directors, Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies, Radcliffe University, 1999–2001.

MEMBER: Phi Beta Delta.

AWARDS, HONORS: Research and scholarship development fund grant, 1992, instructional development fund grant, 1994, and provisional faculty research grant, 1995, all from Northeastern University.

WRITINGS:

The Community Builders: A Tale of Neighborhood Mobilization in Two Cities, Temple University Press (Philadelphia, PA), 1996.

(Editor, with Nancy Kleniewski, and contributor) Community Politics and Policy (Volume seven of "Research in Politics and Society" series), JAI Press (Greenwich, CT), 1999.

(With Jack Levin) Why We Hate, Prometheus Books (Amherst, NY), 2004.

Contributor to books, including Urban Poverty in Affluent Nations, edited by Dan A. Chekki, JAI Press, 1995. Also contributor to periodicals, including Dialectical Anthropology, Sociological Forum, Urban Affairs Quarterly, American Behavioral Scientist, National Women's Studies Association Journal, Choice, Contemporary Sociology and Sociological Analysis.

SIDELIGHTS: Gordana Rabrenovic, an associate professor of sociology at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, focuses her writings on the interconnection of social structure and public policy and how each can affect the other. In The Community Builders: A Tale of Neighborhood Mobilization in Two Cities she examines the ways neighborhoods in two different New York cities have dealt with the impact of wide-scale economic changes and broad public policy on the region. She compared the state capitol of Albany, where the service-sector economy is relatively stable, to the city of Schenectady, where industry is on the decline and the economy is far less stable. Within each city, Rabrenovic focused on both a middle-to-upper-class neighborhood and a lower-class, working neighborhood, aiming to illustrate how financial stability shifts the overall effect of broad policy changes. The goal of the middle-class areas, where more residents are homeowners, is to protect real-estate investments by focusing on policy affecting land-ownership and regulating the influx of newcomers to the neighborhood. In contrast, the lower-class areas, where more residents work in menial jobs and few own property, are more concerned with regulations having to do with services, training, and affordable housing, Rabrenovic found.

In a review of The Community Builders Janice K. Tulloss commented in Urban Affairs Review that "the strength of this book is in its descriptions of these neighborhood organizations and their emergence and internal dynamics. Interviews with members of neighborhood organizations are merged with historical profiles of the cities and the emergence of particular conflicts to chronicle the roots of collective activity." Although the critic found some areas of the book to be less complete than others, Tulloss concluded that Rabrenovic's work "adds to the discussion and provides insights into the constraints imposed on organizations by both the national and local urban political economies."

Why We Hate, which Rabrenovic wrote with criminologist Jack Levin, was composed in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. The book examines hatred and whether it is a learned behavior or an innate human characteristic; the ways in which hatred is commonly triggered; and possible methods for curbing it. The authors also examine America's history of racial tension, in particular with regard to blacks, Jews, and Muslims, and address how this history affects the country's relationships on a global scale. Tim Delaney, in a review for Library Journal, called Why We Hate "provocative and well written."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 2004, Vanessa Bush, review of Why We Hate, p. 1678.

Library Journal, May 15, 2004, Tim Delaney, review of Why We Hate, p. 105.

Publishers Weekly, May 10, 2004, review of Why We Hate, p. 47.

Urban Affairs Review, September, 1997, Janice K. Tulloss, review of The Community Builders: A Tale of Neighborhood Mobilization in Two Cities, p. 149.

ONLINE

Northeastern University Brudnick Center for the Study of Violence and Social Conflict Web site, http://www.violence.neu.edu/ (February 25, 2005), "Gordana Rabrenovic."

Northeastern University College of Arts and Sciences Web site, http://www.casdn.neu.edu/ (February 25, 2005), "Gordana Rabrenovic."