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Topic: On Mead
From The Margaret Mead Symposium: Wither the United States in the World?
Commemorating the centennial of the birth of Margaret Mead.
December 2 & 3, 2001
Sponsors: Library of Congress and The Smithsonian Institution
In this topic, Mead’s importance to multiple fields, her legacy, and her specific concerns are discussed by panelists.
Mead’s Concern on Cultural Interplay
Speaker: William O. Beeman
Professor of Anthropology, Brown University
Mead was interested in making sure that world cultures learn from each other, Beeman says. In And Keep Your Powder Dry Mead discusses American tendencies that could fall under the rubric of national character that give America’s culture great potential. Mead also believed in an “intergenerational cross- culturalization of ideas”
Quicktime (3.27MB)- Windows Media Player (3.96MB)
Mead’s Importance
Speaker: Ali A. Bulakbashi
Director, Social Anthropology, Cultural Research Bureau, Tehran
Bulakbashi discusses Mead’s importance to the world, the United States’ need for more scholars like her, and Mead’s daughter Dr. Mary Catherine Bateson’s time in Tehran.
- Quicktime (3.16MB)
- Windows Media Player (3.83MB)
Mead’s Letters and Comparative Research
Speaker: Edgardo Krebs
Anthropologist, Research Associate, Smithsonian Institution, occasional contributor to La Nacion, Buenos Aires, and Times Literary Supplement
Krebs reads from a letter from Mead written in 1976 in which she recommends that anthropologists visit other anthropologists’ field sites.
- Quicktime (3.98MB)
- Windows Media Player (4.75MB)
Margaret Quote
Speaker: Daniel Metraux
Chairman of Asian Studies, Mary Baldwin College
Metraux quotes Mead and discusses the importance she placed on attention on individuals.
- Quicktime (1.34MB)
- Windows Media Player (1.62MB)
Speaker: Barbara Mossberg
President Emeritus, Goddard College, Senior Consultant, American Council on Education, Center for Institutional and International Initiatives
Mossberg discusses what, to her, are the most important contributions made by Mead, including the study of culture at a distance, and moving out of one’s own culture in order to think about it.
- Quicktime (3.93MB)
- Windows Media Player (4.78MB)
Mead’s Legacy
Speaker: Timothy White
Journalist, executive television and film producer
Mead believed that culture was identifiable, understandable, classifiable and communicable, and that studying other cultures was an important aspect of peace, White points out. White goes on to discuss her use of varied media in her work and the importance of many of the questions she raised.
- Quicktime (5.35MB)
- Windows Media Player (6.46MB)
Mead Stressed Importance of What is Known
Speaker: Timothy White
Journalist, executive television and film producer
Mead carried on Franz Boaz’s legacy of arguing for clear distinctions between what we do know, and what we don’t, and being able to say, “I don’t know.” White discusses this by way of “talking heads” in the media.
- Quicktime (2.22MB)
- Windows Media Player (2.65MB)