Anthropologist's talk looks at communication types

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

MONMOUTH - Author and anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson will deliver the Sam Thompson Lecture at Monmouth College at 7 p.m. Monday in Kasch Performance Hall of the college's Dahl Chapel and Auditorium.

In a lecture titled "Composing Community," Bateson will examine what kinds of communication can hold society together as it becomes more diverse and more subject to rapid change. The lecture is free and open to the public, as is a reception and book signing which follows.

Bateson is the daughter of legendary anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. A renowned writer and cultural anthropologist in her own right, she divides her time between New Hampshire and Massachusetts, where she recently completed three years as a visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She has written and co-authored many books and articles, and is perhaps best known for "Composing a Life," a New York Times paperback bestseller.

A frequent lecturer in the United States and abroad, Bateson is president of the Institute for Intercultural Studies in New York City, established by her mother in 1944.