Willing to Learn: Passages of Personal Discovery [Hardcover]

Mary Catherine Bateson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 12, 2004

WRITER AND EDUCATOR Mary Catherine Bateson is best known for the proposal that lives should be looked at as compositions, each one an artistic creation expressing individual responses to the unexpected. This collection can be read as a memoir of unfolding curiosity, for it brings together essays and occasional pieces, many of them previously unpublished or unknown to readers who know the author only from her books, written in the course of an unconventional career.

Bateson’s professional life was interrupted repeatedly. She responded by refocusing her curiosity — by being willing to learn. The connections and echoes between the entries in her book are as intriguing as the contrasts in style and subject matter. The work is grounded in cultural anthropology but shaped by the observation that, in a world of rapid change and encounters with strangers, individuals can no longer depend on following traditionally defined paths.

Willing to Learn is arranged thematically. One section includes a sampling of writings about Bateson’s parents, anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. The longest section focuses primarily on the contemporary United States and deals with life stages and gender. Bateson argues that because women’s lives have changed most radically, women are pioneers of emerging patterns that will affect everyone. Another section deals with belief systems, conflict, and change, especially in the Middle East, and the final section with different ways of knowing. Bateson is a singular thinker whose work enriches lives by bringing fresh, original ideas to subjects that affect all of our lives. Willing to Learn is at once an articulation of and an enduring testament to the artistic creation Bateson has produced pursuing her own life’s work.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The daughter of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, cultural anthropologist Bateson has long been fascinated by how humans understand, create and adapt to the world in which they live, and in this collection of writings, some previously unpublished, she chronicles her enduring quest for such knowledge. Dividing her rigorous inquiries into sections such as "Age and Gender," "Culture and Conviction" and "Ways of Knowing," Bateson juxtaposes academic articles with more personal reflections and op-eds with conference talks. The odd pairings are intentional, Bateson says, to highlight differences and illuminate connections between disparate investigations; this is in keeping with her "lifelong search for pattern and its recurrence in different contexts." Readers may find the transitions between meaty academic prose and more reflective memoir somewhat jarring, however. And while Bateson's recollections of her famous parents are especially compelling, readers may be most interested in "The Lessons of 9/11," an essay in which she develops a critique of a phrase often uttered in the tragedy's aftermath: "Everything is different." Using the phrase as a locus, Bateson considers the consequences of the terrorist attacks and the possibilities that such a large, traumatic event holds for understanding and knowledge, strongly asserting our need to tolerate, learn from and empathize with divergent views—especially in moments of trauma when learning is most threatened.
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Review

"Readers may be most interested in "The Lessons of 9/11," an essay in which she develops a critique of a phrase often uttered in the tragedy's aftermath: "Everything is different." Using the phrase as a locus, Bateson considers the consequences of the terrorist attacks and the possibilities that such a large, traumatic event holds for understanding and knowledge, strongly asserting our needs to tolerate, learn from and empathize with divergent views--especially in moments of trauma when learning is most threatened." - Publishers Weekly

“I admire Bateson’s work enormously; I think she is one of the most important thinkers and writers of our time.” — Deborah Tannen

“Composing a Life has been such an inspiration because it gave me a framework. She has kind of an anthropological and multicultural view of women’s lives and was very encouraging of me to do a lot of the work I do on women and children.”— Hillary Rodham Clinton

“The author’s vast experience and eclectic knowledge continue to provide incisive perspectives on a variety of contemporary issues, ranging from international politics to ecology and education.”— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the Washington Post

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Steerforth (October 12, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1586420801
• ISBN-13: 978-1586420802
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1.2 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,361,390 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mary Catherine Bateson is a writer and cultural anthropologist. She has retired from teaching but continues as a visiting scholar at Boston College's Center on Aging and Work. She was educated at Radcliffe (BA 1960) and Harvard (PhD 1963). She was Dean of the Faculty at Amherst College 1980-83. From 1987 to 2002, Bateson was Clarence J. Robinson Professor in Anthropology and English at George Mason University, becoming Professor Emerita in 2002. She has also taught at Harvard, Northeastern, Amherst, and Spelman College, as well as overseas in the Philippines and Iran.

Bateson's original research interest was in the Middle East. More recently she has been interested in how women and men work out distinctive adaptations to culture change, learning from those around them and improvising new ways of being. She is currently exploring how extended longevity and lifelong learning modify the rhythms of the life cycle and the interaction between generations.

Her books include:, With a Daughter's Eye: A Memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson; Composing a Life; Peripheral Visions: Learning Along the Way; Full Circles, Overlapping Lives: Culture and Generation in Transition; and Willing to Learn: Passages of Personal Discovery; and Composing a Further Life: The Age of Active Wisdom, September 2010.

Bateson is married and has a married daughter and two grandsons. She lives in Southern New Hampshire.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a treat..., March 14, 2005

By 

Louise Carignan (NH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Willing to Learn: Passages of Personal Discovery (Hardcover)

What a treat to find this hardbound collection of the work of Mary Catherine Bateson. Her prose is eloquent. Her ideas are rich and diverse. Her thinking is open, creative and, at the same time, intensely logical. There are selections from some of her best read books, but she also presents some of her hard-to-find material which merits inclusion. Her very interesting life provides the backdrop, but it's how she processes and weaves her observations and experiences into her work that makes these pieces so very illuminating to me. A must for collectors of the writing of the best thinkers of our time.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Willing to Learn, March 9, 2008

By 

Cheryl Charles (Santa Fe, NM USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Willing to Learn: Passages of Personal Discovery (Hardcover)

Mary Catherine Bateson is among the most important voices alive today. Daughter of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, anything Catherine writes is wise, warm, artful and authentic. Willing to Learn is her newest book. It is a rich collection of essays compiled for the first time and available nowhere else. Ranging from a poignant description of her father's death, which moved me to grateful tears because of what it teaches about dying with grace and dignity, to insights about parenting, politics, aesthetics and world peace, this book is an eclectic feast. You can pick it up and read any chapter, and can read the chapters in any order. Each stands alone and each contributes to our capacity to be nourished and inspired throughout our lives, young and old, if we are "willing to learn."