Mary Catherine Bateson to give keynote at coeducation celebration

Mary Catherine Bateson, cultural anthropologist and linguist, best-selling author and noted scholar, will deliver an address titled "Women in Society: Going from College Life Into the Real World" on Saturday, Oct. 7, at 8 p.m. in Memorial Chapel.

Her talk is part of "Composing a Union," a celebration of 25 years of coeducation at the College. More information on events in "Composing a Union" (including a series of panel discussions on Saturday), is available in the Reamer Campus Center.

Bateson, the daughter of anthropologist Margaret Mead is the author of such well-known books as Peripheral Visions: Learning Along the Way, Composing a Life, Within a Daughter's Eye: A Memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson and Thinking Aids. Bateson is the Clarence J. Robinson Professor in Anthropology and English at George Mason University.

Her thought is rooted in the study of communication. Because anthropologists are accustomed to thinking of whole human communities and their environments, they are trained to search out the relationships between different aspects of human society, from nutrition to leadership to ritual. This means that anthropologists, looking at our own society in comparison to others, often bring a distinctive point of view, recognizing patterns invisible to narrowly defined experts. Her recent emphasis has been on adapting to changes in the life cycle and gender roles.