MARY CATHERINE BATESON (December 8, 1939 – January 2, 2021) was a writer and cultural anthropologist living in the Monadnock region of New Hampshire. She authored and co-authored many books, articles, and lectures, and she taught at Harvard, Northeastern University, Amherst College, Spelman College, and abroad in the Philippines and in Iran.
In 2004 she retired from her position as Clarence J. Robinson Professor in Anthropology and English at George Mason University and became Professor Emerita. Beginning in the Fall of 2006 she was a Visiting Scholar at the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College. She served on multiple advisory boards including that of the National Center on Atmospheric Research and the NSF, dealing with climate change.
Her books include With a Daughter's Eye (on her parents Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson); Our Own Metaphor; Angels Fear: Toward an Epistemology of the Sacred (written with Gregory Bateson); Composing a Life; Peripheral Visions: Learning Along The Way; Full Circles, Overlapping Lives: Culture and Generation in Transition; and Composing a Further Life: The Age of Active Wisdom. A new book, Love Across Difference, is in press and scheduled for publication in 2022.
