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Mary Catherine Bateson | |
|---|---|
 Bateson in 2004 | |
| Born | (1939-12-08)December 8, 1939 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | January 2, 2021(2021-01-02) (aged 81) New Hampshire, U.S. |
| Education | |
| Occupation | Cultural anthropologist |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 1 |
| Parents | |
| Relatives |
|
Mary Catherine Bateson (December 8, 1939 – January 2, 2021) was an American writer and culturalanthropologist.
The daughter ofMargaret Mead andGregory Bateson,[1] Bateson was a noted author in her field with many publishedmonographs. Among her books wasWith a Daughter's Eye: A Memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, a recounting of her upbringing by two famous parents. She taught atHarvard,Amherst, andGeorge Mason University.
Bateson was a graduate of theBrearley School and received her B.A. fromRadcliffe in 1960 and her Ph.D. in linguistics and Middle Eastern Studies fromHarvard in 1963. Her dissertation examined linguistic patterns in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry.[2]
In the mid-1960s, Bateson became a visiting assistant professor of anthropology at theAteneo de Manila University in the Philippines, studyingTagalog and helping organize a sociology seminar with businessman Sixto K. Roxas in 1968 to better address housing needs for the SSS Village then being built in the town ofMarikina,Rizal.[3][4]
Bateson considered herself an "activist for peace and justice"[5] and stressed the importance in the years of “unanticipated longevity”[5] of continuing to be willing to learn. Because of her work on aging and the changing role of women in modern society, Bateson has been referred to as one of the most original thinkers of our time. Lectures by Bateson have encouraged adults to become a lot more engaged in the world and not to retire.[citation needed]
At the beginning of her career, she was a linguist and studied Arabic poetry. Then, she shifted her focus from a professional interest in human patterns of communication to highly-formalistic studies, which started her career as an anthropologist. Changing focus in topics, Bateson began to use her own life experience to write.[5]
Bateson was a fellow of theInternational Leadership Forum and was president of the Institute for Intercultural Studies in New York until 2010.[6]
Bateson was married to Barkev Kassarjian, a professor of management atBabson College, from 1960 to her death. As graduate students, the young couple purchased, for a sum of $15,000, an 18th-century farmhouse on a wooded 100-acre New Hampshire property that served, in addition to aCambridge, Massachusetts apartment, as their home for over 50 years.[7] They had one daughter, Sevanne Margaret (born 1969), an actress who works professionally under the name Sevanne Martin,[8] and two grandchildren.[9]
Through her mother's side of the family, Bateson was also the cousin ofJeremy Steig[1] as well as a niece ofWilliam Steig andLeo Rosten.[10] Toward the end of Bateson's residence in Iran in 1979, Catherine's mother who was paying a visit to her family in Iran died in New York. Her father then died a year later in 1980.
Bateson died on January 2, 2021, at a hospice near her home inHancock, New Hampshire, aged 81.[3] She had suffered from brain damage from a fall a few months earlier.[3]
Bateson used her own experience as a woman, daughter, mother, scholar, and anthropologist, who went through many different situations, as a guide for her writings.[11] Bateson liked to keep her readers engaged by having them question her ideology and entertain the readings own provoking thoughts with questions. She wrote in a similar style to journaling and often used personal examples or quotes for ideas and observations.[11] She also used cross-cultural experiences of other individuals incorporated into her writings.[11]
One of Bateson's first books was her memoirWith a Daughter's Eye in which she reflected on her earlier life with her parents:Margaret Mead andGregory Bateson.[12] The memoir created a path for self-discovery and enablement of the experiences that she incorporated into her writings, such as her next book,Composing a Life.[13] That book showed how deeply connected Bateson's own journey as a scholar as parallel was to a world in which she and other women faced overt sexism and female inferiority.[13]
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