Mary Catherine Bateson is a writer and cultural anthropologist. She has 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 is now Professor Emerita. Since the Fall of 2006 she has been a Visiting Scholar at the Center on Aging & Work/Workplace Flexibility at Boston College. Her books include Composing a Further Life: The Age of Active Wisdom (Knopf), Composing a Life, Our Own Metaphor, Peripheral Visions, and a memoir, With a Daughter’s Eye: A Memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. (Wikimedia: Photo by Dennis Finnen).