GREGORY BATESON – BIOGRAPHICAL CHRONOLOGY

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A Brief Biographical Chronology of Gregory Bateson

1904 born (May 9) in Grantchester, Cambridgeshire, England; son of William Bateson (b. August 8, 1861) and Caroline Beatrice Bateson (b. 1870?)

1913–17 attends preparatory school at Warden House, Deal, Kent

1917–21 attends public school at Charterhouse, Godalming, Surrey

1922–6 attends Cambridge University: honors degree in natural science and anthropology (1926, under A. C. Haddon)

1926 death of William Bateson (father; February 8)

1927–30 anthropological fieldwork among the Baining and Sulka of New Britain and among the Iatmul of New Guinea, where he first meets Margaret Mead

1930 M.A. in anthropology

1931–37 Research Fellow, St John’s College, Cambridge; works on Naven, which is published in 1936

1936 marries Margaret Mead (b. December 16, 1901) on March 13

1936–38 anthropological fieldwork with Margaret Mead in Bali

1939 birth of daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson (December 8)

1940–42 works for the Committee for National Morale

1942–43 film analyst, Museum of Modern Art, New York

1943–45 staff planner and regional specialist for Southeast Asia, for the US Office of Strategic Services (overseas in Ceylon, India, Burma, China)

1946–48 attends first Macy conferences on feedback mechanisms and circular causal systems in biological and social sciences; visiting professor of anthropology, New School for Social Research (New York City) and Harvard University

1948–49 research associate with Dr Jurgen Ruesch at the Langley Porter Clinic, University of California Medical School, San Francisco

1949–63 ethnologist, Veterans Administration Hospital, Palo Alto, California

1950 divorces Margaret Mead and marries Elizabeth Sumner

1951 birth of son, John Bateson

1954–59 director, research project on schizophrenic communication under a grant from the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation

1957 divorces Elizabeth Sumner

1961 marries Lois Cammack

1963–64 associate director, Communications Institute, St Thomas, Virgin Islands; works with John Lilly on dolphin communication

1965–72 associate director, Oceanic Institute, Waimanalo, Hawaii, and part- time visiting professor, University of Hawaii; begins formal work on ecosystems as an extension of his notion of “ecology of mind”

1969 birth of daughter, Nora Bateson (April 13)

1972 publication of Steps to an Ecology of Mind

1972–78 visiting senior lecturer (part- time in the Department of Anthropology), University of California, Santa Cruz

1976 appointed to the Board of Regents of the University of California

1978–80 scholar- in-residence, Esalen Institute, where he works on a manuscript entitled “Where Angels Fear to Tread”

1979 publication of Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity

1980 dies (July 4), Zen Center, San Francisco, California

Adapted from Rodney E. Donaldson, Gregory Bateson Archive: A Guide/Catalog, 4 vols. (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International Dissertation Information Service, 1987), 1:5–9."