Mead (, ; archaic and dialectal "medd"; from Old English "meodu"), also called honey wine, is an alcoholic beverage that is produced by fermenting a solution of honey and water. It may also be produced by fermenting a solution of water and honey with grain mash; the mash is strained off immediately after fermentation. Depending on local traditions and specific recipes, it may be flavored with spices, fruit, or hops (which produce a bitter, beer-like flavor). The alcoholic content of mead may range from about 8% ABV to 18%. It may be still, carbonated, or sparkling, and it may be dry, semi-sweet, or sweet.

Mead is known from many sources of ancient history throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia, although archaeological evidence of it is ambiguous. Its origins are lost in prehistory. "It can be regarded as the ancestor of all fermented drinks," Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat has observed, "antedating the cultivation of the soil."

Claude Lévi-Strauss makes a case for the invention of mead as a marker of the passage "from nature to culture." Mead has played an important role in the beliefs and mythology of some peoples. One such example the Mead of Poetry, is a mead of Norse mythology crafted from the blood of the wise being Kvasir which turns the drinker into a poet or scholar.

History

The earliest archaeological evidence for the production of mead dates to around 7000 BC. Pottery vessels containing a mixture of mead, rice and other fruits along with organic compounds of fermentation were found in Northern China. In Europe, it is first attested in residual samples found in the characteristic ceramics of the Bell Beaker Culture.

The earliest surviving description of mead is in the hymns of the ''Rigveda'', one of the sacred books of the historical Vedic religion and (later) Hinduism dated around 1700–1100 BC. During the Golden Age of Ancient Greece, mead was said to be the preferred drink. Aristotle (384–322 BC) discussed mead in his ''Meteorologica'' and elsewhere, while Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79) called mead ''militites'' in his ''Naturalis Historia'' and differentiated wine sweetened with honey or "honey-wine" from mead. The Spanish-Roman naturalist Columella gave a recipe for mead in ''De re rustica'', about AD 60.

Around AD 550, the Brythonic speaking bard Taliesin wrote the '''' or "Song of Mead." The legendary drinking, feasting and boasting of warriors in the mead hall is echoed in the mead hall ''Dyn Eidyn'' (modern day Edinburgh), and in the epic poem ''Y Gododdin'', both dated around AD 700. In the Old English epic poem ''Beowulf'', the Danish warriors drank mead. Mead was the historical beverage ''par excellence'' and commonly brewed by the Germanic tribes in Northern Europe. Later, heavy taxation and regulations governing the ingredients of alcoholic beverages led to commercial mead becoming a more obscure beverage until recently. Some monasteries kept up the old traditions of mead-making as a by-product of beekeeping, especially in areas where grapes could not be grown.

Etymology

The English word mead derives from the Old English ''meodu'', from Proto-Germanic ''meduz'', from Proto-Indo-European ''*médʰu'' (honey, fermented honey drink). Slavic ''med / miod '', which means both "honey" and "mead", (Czech, Slovak, Serbian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Croatian: ''med'' vs. ''medovina'', Polish 'miód' pronounce [mju:t] - honey, mead) and Baltic ''medus'' "honey"/''midus'' "mead", also derive from the same Proto-Indo-European root (cf. Welsh medd, Old Irish mid, and Sanskrit ''madhu'').

Distribution

Mead was also popular in Central Europe and in the Baltic states. In the Polish language mead is called '''' (), meaning "drinkable honey". In Russia mead remained popular as medovukha and sbiten long after its decline in the West. Sbiten is often mentioned in the works of 19th-century Russian writers, including Gogol, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy.

In Finland a sweet mead called '''' (cognate with the root of zymurgy) is still an essential seasonal brew connected with the Finnish Vappu (May Day) festival. It is usually spiced by adding both the pulp and rind of a lemon. During secondary fermentation, raisins are added to control the amount of sugars and to act as an indicator of readiness for consumption; they will rise to the top of the bottle when the drink is ready.

Ethiopian mead is called ''tej'' (ጠጅ, ) and is usually home-made. It is flavored with the powdered leaves and bark of ''gesho'', a hop-like bittering agent which is a species of buckthorn. A sweeter, less-alcoholic version called ''berz'', aged for a shorter time, is also made. The traditional vessel for drinking ''tej'' is a rounded vase-shaped container called a ''berele''.

Mead known as iQhilika is traditionally prepared by the Xhosa of South Africa.

Varieties

Mead can have a wide range of flavors, depending on the source of the honey, additives (also known as "adjuncts" or "gruit"), including fruit and spices, the yeast employed during fermentation, and aging procedure. Mead can be difficult to find commercially. Some producers have marketed white wine with added honey as mead, often spelling it "meade." This is closer in style to a Hypocras. Blended varieties of mead may be known by either style represented. For instance, a mead made with cinnamon and apples may be referred to as either a cinnamon cyser or an apple metheglin.

A mead that also contains spices (such as cloves, cinnamon or nutmeg), or herbs (such as oregano, hops, or even lavender or chamomile), is called a metheglin ().

A mead that contains fruit (such as raspberry, blackberry or strawberry) is called a melomel, which was also used as a means of food preservation, keeping summer produce for the winter. A mead that is fermented with grape juice is called a pyment. another theory is that the term derived from the Japanese drink sake, being introduced by Spanish and Portuguese traders. Short mead — Also called "quick mead." A type of mead recipe that is meant to age quickly, for immediate consumption. Because of the techniques used in its creation, short mead shares some qualities found in cider (or even light ale): primarily that it is effervescent, and often has a cidery taste. It can also be champagne-like.

Show mead — A term which has come to mean "plain" mead: that which has honey and water as a base, with no fruits, spices or extra flavorings. Since honey alone often does not provide enough nourishment for the yeast to carry on its lifecycle, a mead that is devoid of fruit, etc. will sometimes require a special yeast nutrient and other enzymes to produce an acceptable finished product. In most competitions including all those using the BJCP style guidelines as well as the International Mead Fest, the term "traditional mead" is used for this variety. It should be considered, however, that since mead is historically a very variable product, such recent (and artificial) guidelines apply mainly to competition judging as a means of providing a common language; style guidelines, per se, do not really apply to commercial and historical examples of this or any type of mead.

Sima - a quickly fermented low-alcoholic Finnish variety, seasoned with lemon and associated with the festival of vappu.

Tej — Tej is an Ethiopian mead, fermented with wild yeasts (and bacteria), and with the addition of ''gesho''. Recipes vary from family to family, with some recipes leaning towards ''braggot'' with the inclusion of grains.

Trójniak(TSG) — A Polish mead, made using two units of water for each unit of honey.

White mead — A mead that is colored white, either from herbs or fruit used or sometimes egg whites.

Festivals

Mazer Cup International Mead Competition and Tasting Event -- Sponsored by Gotmead.com, this event is held every year in March in Boulder, Colorado. It is the largest mead event in the world, with over 300 home meads and over 200 commercial meads in competition. There is a Friday tasting event with the gold medal winning commercial meads from the previous year, plus feature meads from around the world., Real Ale Festival in Chicago, Illinois, includes categories for mead as well as cider and perry.

Woodbridge International Mead Festival - Sponsored by local residents, it claims to be the only mead festival east of the Mississippi. While there are relatively few types of mead available, all are home-brewed and go through a rigorous judging process.

In literature

Mead features prominently in many Germanic myths and folktales such as ''Beowulf'', as well as in other popular works that draw on these myths. Notable examples include books by Tolkien and Neil Gaiman. It is often featured in books using a historical Germanic setting, such as the Viking era. Mead is mentioned many times in Neil Gaiman's 2001 novel, ''American Gods''; it is referred to as the drink of the gods. Also, in the books of the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini, it is often drunk by Eragon Shadeslayer at feasts in honor of him. Mead is also referenced in The Kingkiller Chronicle novel series by Patrick Rothfuss. The protagonist Kvothe is known to drink metheglin. The non-existent "Greysdale Mead" is also drunk, although it is merely water.

See also

History of alcohol

Kilju

Mead hall

References

Further reading

External links

GotMead.com

The Mead Hall

A Simple Mead Recipe

Category:Beekeeping Category:Germanic paganism Category:Slavic cuisine

ang:Meodu ast:Hidromiel bar:Met bs:Medovina bg:Медовина (напитка) ca:Hidromel cs:Medovina cy:Medd da:Mjød de:Met es:Hidromiel eo:Medo eu:Ezti-ur fa:می‌انگبین fr:Hydromel gl:Hidromel ko:벌꿀술 hy:Մեղրագինի hr:Medovina id:Mead is:Mjöður it:Idromele he:תמד lbe:Мачча la:Hydromeli lt:Medaus gėrimas hu:Mézsör nl:Mede (drank) ja:蜂蜜酒 no:Mjød nn:Mjød nrm:Baûchet pl:Miód pitny pt:Hidromel ru:Мёд (напиток) simple:Mead sk:Medovina sr:Медовина sv:Mjöd uk:Мед (напій) zh:蜂蜜酒

Steven Mead (born 1962, Bournemouth, England) is an English virtuoso euphonium soloist and teacher who has played an important role in achieving worldwide recognition of the instrument.

Mead is widely regarded as one of the most successful professional euphonium soloists in the world today, performing over 75 concerts per year with some of the leading orchestras, wind bands and brass bands in the world. In recent years he has played solo concerti with symphony orchestras, including: Germany (Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra) Norway (Trondheim Symphony Orchestra), Finland (Lahti Symphony Orchestra and Helsinki Philharmonic), Poland (Capella Cracoviensis), USA (Minneapolis Pops Orchestra) and the Japan Chamber Orchestra. During a particularly critically acclaimed improvised performance at the Guggenheim Museum in 1988, He has premiered works by Martin Ellerby, Torstein Aagaard-Nilsen, Vladimir Cosma, Goff Richards, John Reeman, Rolf Rudin and Philip Sparke, amongst others. Goff Richards' ''Pilatus'', Aagaard-Nilsen's ''Concerto for Euphonium and Orchestra'', Reeman's ''Sonata for Euphonium'' and Ellerby's ''Euphonium Concerto'' were all written expressly for Mead.

Mead has developed a series of mouthpieces for brass instruments, as well as the Besson Prestige Euphonium and is on the faculty of the Royal Northern College of Music, School of Wind, Brass and Percussion.

Selected recordings

Joseph Horovitz: ''Four Concertos''

:Ensemble: Royal Ballet Sinfonia; Soloists: Andrew Haveron (violin), Steven Mead (euphonium), David Owen Norris (piano); Conductor Joseph Horovitz; Label: Dutton Epoch.

''Concertino''

:Ensemble: The Lillestrøm Musikkorps; Soloist: Steven Mead (euphonium); Conductor Gert Buitenhuis; Label: Polyphonic.

''Euphonium Virtuoso''

:Ensemble: Brass Band Buizingen; Soloist: Steven Mead (euphonium); Conductor: Luc Vertommen; Label: Bocchino.

''Dreamscapes: Wind Music by Ellerby, Clarke & Josephs''

:Ensemble: Royal Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra; Soloist: Steven Mead (euphonium); Conductor: James Gourlay; Label: Polyphonic.

''Audacious''

:Soloist: Steven Mead; Accompanied by Tomoko Sawano, piano; Label: Bocchino.

''Fandango'', released June 1, 2011; Accompanied by Tomoko Sawano, piano; Label: Bocchino.

References

Rachel Dunlap, Mead to perform world-class talents on obscure brass instrument, ''Spectator Eau Claire'', January 25, 2001. Accessed 10 September 2008.

Ronald Holz, Review: ''Euphonium Virtuoso'' (Bocchino CD BOCC107), ''The Brass Band Bridge'', North American Brass Band Association, Issue 101, October 2006. pp. 21–22. Accessed 10 September 2008.

Steven Mead biography on the Besson company web site. Accessed 10 September 2008.

External links

Steven Mead's official website

Steven Mead's UK based brass sales website

Video of a live unedited performance, most of the third movement of the Hallows Concerto (Rolf Rudin) in a performance given by Steven at The Capitol Theatre, Offenbach, Germany on Sunday 15 March 2009, with the Neue Philharmonie Orchestra, conductor Roland Boer

Category:Brass musicians Category:English classical musicians Category:Euphonium players Category:1962 births Category:Living people Category:People from Bournemouth

de:Steven Mead nl:Steven Mead no:Steven Mead

Coordinates	33°51′35.9″N151°12′40″N
name	Syd Mead
birth date	July 18, 1933
birth place	Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States
other names	Sydney Jay Mead
occupation	Industrial designer }}

Sydney Jay Mead, commonly Syd Mead, (born July 18, 1933 in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States) is a "visual futurist" and concept artist. He is best known for his designs for science-fiction films such as ''Blade Runner'', ''Aliens'', and ''Tron''. Of his work, Mead was once moved to comment: "I've called science fiction 'reality ahead of schedule.'"

Biography

Mead was born in St. Paul Minnesota, July 18, 1933 but spent only a few years there before moving to what would be the second of many homes throughout the western United States prior to graduating from high school in Colorado Springs, Colorado in 1951. After serving a three-year enlistment in the U.S. Army, Syd Mead continued on to the Art Center School in Los Angeles, (now the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena) where he graduated in June 1959. He was recruited by the Ford Motor Company’s Advanced Styling Studio under the management of Elwood Engel. Mead left the studio after two years to accept a variety of assignments to illustrate books and catalogues for large corporate entities such as United States Steel, Celanese, Allis Chalmers and Atlas Cement. In 1970, he launched Syd Mead, Inc. in Detroit, Michigan to accommodate the offers he received, most notably from Philips Electronics. As the principal of his newly formed corporation in the 1970s, Syd Mead spent about a third of his time in Europe, primarily to provide designs and illustrations for Philips of Holland. His work for international clients continues to this day. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Syd Mead, Inc. provided architectural renderings both interior and exterior for such clients as Intercontinental Hotels, 3D International, Harwood Taylor & Associates, Don Ghia, and Gresham & Smith. His architectural clients recently have expanded to include the New York firm of Philip Koether Architects, for which he designed the interior of a Manhattan eatery. Design activity accelerated after the corporate and personal move to California in 1975. In 1979, projects began to include work with most major studios, on such feature films as Star Trek: The Motion Picture, followed by Blade Runner, Tron, 2010, Short Circuit, Aliens, Time Cop, Johnny Mnemonic, and Mission: Impossible III. Beginning in 1983, Mead began to develop working relationships with Japanese corporate clients, including Sony, Minolta, Dentsu, Dyflex, Tiger Corporation, Seibu, Mitsukoshi, Bandai, NHK and Honda as well as contributing to two Japanese film projects, ''The New Yamato'' and ''Crises 2050.'' In the 1990s, Syd supplied designs for two Japanese toy icons, “The New Yamato” and all eight robot characters in the new Turn-A Gundam Mobile Suit series, which were also seen as characters in television shows.

With transportation design as his first love, Syd Mead seldom misses an opportunity to provide his unique blend of futurism and believability to those projects consisting of a vehicle that travels from A to B. Whether it be designing solar powered unicycles, show cars, luxury yachts, cruise ships, or the interiors of private 747s, each receives the same attention to detail within a perfectly designed scenario. This combination has become a Syd Mead trademark and has been seen in everything from concept cars for Ford Motor Company to futuristic “hypervans” which have been the subject of his latest full color illustrations.

Syd Mead continues an active schedule of one-man shows, which started with an invitation to exhibit at Documenta 6, Kassel, West Germany in 1973. His work has since been exhibited in Japan, Italy, California, and Spain. In 1983, in response to an in invitation from Chrysler Corporation to be a guest speaker to their design staff, Syd Mead assembled a selection of slides to visually enhance his lecture. The resulting presentation was a resounding success and since has been expanded and enhanced with computer-generated imagery specifically assembled at the requests of such clients as Disney, Carnegie Mellon University, Purdue, Pratt University, the Society of Illustrators and many others both academic and corporate around the world. In March 2010, Syd completed a four-city tour in Australia to capacity audiences at each venue.

Always an advocate of new technologies, Syd Mead has expanded his horizons to include computer illustrations and graphics by mastering a variety of software. Beginning with the official poster of the 1991 Concours d’Elegance “Eyes on the Classics” in Detroit, Michigan, Mr. Mead has attempted to use the latest in available techniques to their best advantage. In 1993, a digital gallery consisting of 50 examples of his art with interface screens designed by him became one of the first CD-ROMs released in Japan in 1992. In 2004 in response to many requests, Mead cooperated with the Gnomon School of Visual Effects to produce a 4 volume, “How To” DVD series titled, “TECHNIQUES OF SYD MEAD” which continues to be sought after by designers around the world.

His one-man show, “Cavalcade to the Crimson Castle,” consisting of 114 original paintings and illustrations, enjoyed a three-month showing at the Center for the Arts in San Francisco in the Fall of 1996. The highlight of the show turned out to be Syd’s presentation and lecture, which attracted an audience that exceeded the available capacity of the auditorium. Subsequent personal appearances at schools across the country have attracted record numbers. A touring exhibition of his work is now in the planning stage to mark the 40th anniversary of Syd Mead, Inc.

In February 1998, Syd Mead relocated his studio to Pasadena, California, where he continues to be involved in a variety of design projects. He recently completed work on a documentary of his career with director Joaquin Montalvan. “VISUAL FUTURIST” was released in May 2007 on DVD and is available through the virtual Oblagon bookstore on the Syd Mead official webpage WWW.SYDMEAD.COM. Mead attributes success in an astonishing range of creative activities to the premise that imagination--the idea--supersedes technique.

Career history

Mead has worked on or worked for the following:

1959: Ford Motor Company's Advanced Styling Center in Dearborn, Michigan.

1960–1961: Ford Motor Company Styling in Detroit, Michigan.

1961: Futuristic paintings for a US Steel booklet.

1970: Starts own company, Syd Mead, Inc.

1976: Book of designs ''Sentinel'' published.

1978: production illustrator for the movie ''Star Trek: The Motion Picture'' (V'ger design) 1980: Begins his work as "visual futurist " on ''Blade Runner'', designing city backgrounds and vehicles. Also works as a conceptual artist of the electronic world in ''Tron'', designing lightcycles, tanks, solar sailers, and carriers. 1983: Works for the movie ''2010'' as visual futurist, designing the Leonov spaceship. 1985: Conceptual artist for ''Aliens'' (''Sulaco'' spaceship design). Consultant and designer of the "Johnny 5" robot in the movie ''Short Circuit''. Book ''Oblagon'' published.

1987: Designed space cruisers, fighters, props, and costumes for the Japanese animation ''Yamato 2520''.

Conceptual futurist for ''UFO Cover-Up?: Live!'' (1988) Conceptual artist of the future depicted in ''Solar Crisis'' (1990) Involved in ''The Spirit of '76'' (1990)

1991: ''Kronolog'' design book (compilation of ''Kronovecta'', ''Kronoteco'', and ''Kronovid'' books) published.

1991: Designed backgrounds and spacecraft for the video game ''Terraforming'' (1992, PC-Engine DUO, Japan), also known as ''Syd Mead's Terraforming'' (1993, TurboDuo, North America).

Production designer for the future Paris in From Time to Time (1992) Futuristic concept consultant for ''The Fire Next Time'' (1993) (TV)

1993: Designed vehicles for the computer game ''CyberRace''.

1994: Worked as visual consultant on designs for ''Timecop'' (guns, time machine). For ''Strange Days'', designed "sim-stim" playback deck and headgear electrodes known as "trodes" Visual consultant for Johnny Mnemonic (1995)

1995: Designed vehicles for the SegaSaturn game ''Gran Chaser'' aka ''Cyber Speedway'' (''CyberRace'''s sequel).

1997: Alien conceptual artist on the computer game ''Wing Commander: Prophecy''. 1998: Designs mobile suit mecha for the anime ''Turn A Gundam''. Credited as concept designer and mechanical designer. 2000: Works on ''Mission to Mars'' (conceptual artist) (vehicle design). Production designer in Software (2000)

2001: ''Sentury'' published.

2003: Contributes a new Light Cycle design to the PC game TRON 2.0.

2004: Gnomon Workshop educational DVDs.

2005: Worked on ''Mission: Impossible III'' (Mask Maker machine design ).

2008: Worked with Gearbox Software on ''Aliens: Colonial Marines''

2010: ''Sentury II'' published.

About Mead

Documentary films about Mead and his work include Visual Futurist: The Art & Life of Syd Mead (2006) 107 min 2019: A Future Imagined (2008) 8 min Mead also appears in movie documentaries such as ''Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner'' and Mark Kermode's ''On the Edge of Blade Runner'' and promotional materials such as the DVD extra for Aliens and the promotional short film about making of 2010.

References

External links

Syd Mead entry at Anime.com

Blogs in JPN

Detailed information for the "Syd Mead's Terraforming" video-game at the PC Engine Software Bible

Entry for Syd Mead's Terraforming at PC-Engine Catalog Project

Event Recap: "An Audience with Syd Mead", Brisbane, March 2010

Gnomon Workshop DVD's with Syd Mead

Interviews

Starlog (USA) May 1982, Iss. 58, pg. 36-39,+61, by: Ed Naha, "Blade Runner's Syd Mead: An Artist With Designs on the Future"

Starlog (USA) November 1992, Iss. 184, by: Randy & Jean-Marc Lofficier, "Detective Future Past"

The future came true – An Interview with Syd Mead

Syd Mead's interview at Jabučnjak, July 2009

Category:1933 births Category:Living people Category:American industrial designers Category:American production designers Category:Science fiction artists

ca:Syd Mead de:Syd Mead es:Syd Mead fr:Syd Mead ko:시드 미드 it:Syd Mead ja:シド・ミード ro:Syd Mead sl:Syd Mead

Coordinates	33°51′35.9″N151°12′40″N
name	Margaret Mead
birth date	December 16, 1901
birth place	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
death date	November 15, 1978
death place	New York City
education	A.B., Barnard College (1923) M.A., Columbia University (1924) Ph.D., Columbia University (1929)
occupation	Anthropologist
spouse	Luther Cressman (1923-1928) Reo Fortune (1928-1935) Gregory Bateson (1936-1950)
children	Mary Catherine Bateson (b. 1939) }}

Margaret Mead (December 16, 1901 – November 15, 1978) was an American cultural anthropologist, who was frequently a featured writer and speaker in the mass media throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

She was both a popularizer of the insights of anthropology into modern American and Western culture, and also a respected, if controversial, academic anthropologist. Her reports about the attitudes towards sex in South Pacific and Southeast Asian traditional cultures amply informed the 1960s sexual revolution. Mead was a champion of broadened sexual morals within a context of traditional western religious life.

An Anglican Christian, she played a considerable part in the drafting of the 1979 American Episcopal Book of Common Prayer.

Birth, early family life and education

Mead was the first of five children, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but raised in Doylestown. Her father, Edward Sherwood Mead, was a professor of finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and her mother, Emily Fogg Mead, was a sociologist who studied Italian immigrants. Her sister Katharine (1906–1907) died at the age of nine months. This was a traumatic event for Mead, who had named this baby, and thoughts of her lost sister permeated her daydreams for many years. Her family moved frequently, so her early education alternated between home-schooling and traditional schools. Born into a family of varying religious outlooks, she searched for a form of religion that gave an expression of the faith that she had been formally acquainted with, Christianity. In doing so, she found the rituals of the Episcopal Church to fit the expression of religion she was seeking. Margaret studied one year, 1919, at DePauw University, then transferred to Barnard College where she earned her Bachelor's degree in 1923.

She studied with Professor Franz Boas and Dr. Ruth Benedict at Columbia University before earning her Master's in 1924. Mead set out in 1925 to do fieldwork in Polynesia. In 1926, she joined the American Museum of Natural History, New York City, as assistant curator. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1929.

Both of Mead's surviving sisters were married to well-known men. Elizabeth Mead (1909–1983), an artist and teacher, married cartoonist William Steig, and Priscilla Mead (1911–1959) married author Leo Rosten. Mead also had a brother, Richard, who became a professor.

Mead's observation skills came from her grandmother and her mother. When Mead was a child they would observe and record her actions in a notebook. Mead realized the importance of observing and recording important findings.

Personal life

Mead was married three times. Her first husband (1923–1928) was Luther Cressman, a theology student at the time who eventually became an anthropologist. Mead dismissively characterized their union as "my student marriage" in ''Blackberry Winter'', a sobriquet with which Cressman took vigorous issue. Her second husband was New Zealander Reo Fortune, a Cambridge graduate (1928–1935). As an anthropologist, his ''Sorcerers of Dobu'' remains the ''locus classicus'' of eastern Papuan anthropology, but he is best known instead for his Fortunate number theory. She described her second marriage as more passionate than the first, embarked upon when she was told that she could not have children and abandoned when she was given hope by another physician that childbearing might indeed be possible.

Her third and longest-lasting marriage (1936–1950) was to Englishman Gregory Bateson, also a Cambridge graduate, with whom she had a daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson, who would also become an anthropologist. Her pediatrician was Benjamin Spock early in his career. Spock's subsequent writings on child rearing incorporated some of Mead's own practices and beliefs acquired from her ethnological field observations which she shared with him; in particular, breastfeeding on the baby's demand rather than a schedule. She readily acknowledged that Gregory Bateson was the husband she loved the most. She was devastated when he left her, and she remained his loving friend ever after, keeping his photograph by her bedside wherever she traveled, including beside her hospital deathbed.

Mead also had an exceptionally close relationship with Ruth Benedict, one of her instructors. In her memoir about her parents, ''With a Daughter's Eye'', Mary Catherine Bateson implies that the relationship between Benedict and Mead was partly sexual. While Margaret Mead never openly identified herself as lesbian or bisexual, the details of her relationship with Benedict have led others to so identify her. In her writings she proposed that it is to be expected that an individual's sexual orientation may evolve throughout life.

She spent her last years in a close personal and professional collaboration with anthropologist Rhoda Metraux, with whom she lived from 1955 until her death in 1978. Letters between the two published in 2006 with the permission of Mead's daughter clearly express a romantic relationship.

Career and later life

During World War II, Mead served as executive secretary of the National Research Council's Committee on Food Habits. She served as curator of ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History from 1946 to 1969. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1948. She taught at The New School and Columbia University, where she was an adjunct professor from 1954 to 1978. She was a professor of anthropology and chair of the Division of Social Sciences at Fordham University's Lincoln Center campus from 1968 to 1970, founding their anthropology department. Following the Ruth Benedict's example, Mead focused her research on problems of child rearing, personality, and culture. She served as President of the American Anthropological Association in 1960. She held various positions in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, notably president in 1975 and chair of the executive committee of the board of directors in 1976.

Mead was featured on two record albums published by Folkways Records. The first, released in 1959, ''An Interview With Margaret Mead,'' explored the topics of morals and anthropology. In 1971, she was included in a compilation of talks by prominent women, ''But the Women Rose, Vol.2: Voices of Women in American History''.

She is credited with the pluralization of the term "semiotics."

In later life, Mead was a mentor to many young anthropologists and sociologists, including Jean Houston.

Mead died of pancreatic cancer on November 15, 1978. She was buried at Trinity Episcopal Church in Buckingham, Pennsylvania.

Work

''Coming of Age in Samoa''

In the foreword to ''Coming of Age in Samoa'', Mead's advisor, Franz Boas, wrote of its significance:

Courtesy, modesty, good manners, conformity to definite ethical standards are universal, but what constitutes courtesy, modesty, very good manners, and definite ethical standards is not universal. It is instructive to know that standards differ in the most unexpected ways.

Boas went on to point out that at the time of publication, many Americans had begun to discuss the problems faced by young people (particularly women) as they pass through adolescence as "unavoidable periods of adjustment". Boas felt that a study of the problems faced by adolescents in another culture would be illuminating.

And so, as Mead herself described the goal of her research: "I have tried to answer the question which sent me to Samoa: Are the disturbances which vex our adolescents due to the nature of adolescence itself or to the civilization? Under different conditions does adolescence present a different picture?" To answer this question, she conducted her study among a small group of Samoans — a village of 600 people on the island of Ta‘u — in which she got to know, live with, observe, and interview through an interpreter 68 young women between the ages of 9 and 20. She concluded that the passage from childhood to adulthood — adolescence — in Samoa was a smooth transition and not marked by the emotional or psychological distress, anxiety, or confusion seen in the United States.

As Boas and Mead expected, this book upset many Westerners when it first appeared in 1928. Many American readers were shocked by her observation that incest was common in the Samoan culture and her claim that young Samoan women deferred marriage for many years while enjoying casual sex but eventually married, settled down, and successfully reared their own children.

Mead's findings suggested that the community ignores both boys and girls until they are about 15 or 16. Before then, children have no social standing within the community. Mead also found that marriage is regarded as a social and economic arrangement where wealth, rank, and job skills of the husband and wife are taken into consideration.

In 1983, five years after Mead had died, New Zealand anthropologist Derek Freeman, published ''Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth'', in which he challenged Mead's major findings about sexuality in Samoan society, citing statements of her surviving informants' claiming that she had coaxed them into giving her the answers she wanted. Most anthropologists have been highly critical of Freeman's arguments, even if they are often skeptical of Mead's popular works, such as Coming of Age in Samoa. A frequent critique of Freeman is that he regularly misrepresented Mead's research and views. In a recent evaluation of the debate, anthropologist Paul Shankman concluded that: :There is now a large body of criticism of Freeman's work from a number of perspectives in which Mead, Samoa, and anthropology appear in a very different light than they do in Freeman's work. Indeed, the immense significance that Freeman gave his critique looks like "much ado about nothing" to many of his critics.

Evaluating Mead's work in Samoa from a positivist stance, Martin Orans' assessment of the controversy was that Mead did not formulate her research agenda in scientific terms, nor did she carry it out with proper scientific rigour, meaning that her enquiry could not have provided the evidence needed to prove her thesis. Thus he concludes that "her work may properly be damned with the harshest scientific criticism of all, that it is "not even wrong"".

''Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies''

Another influential book by Mead was ''Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies''. This became a major cornerstone of the feminist movement, since it claimed that females are dominant in the Tchambuli (now spelled Chambri) Lake region of the Sepik basin of Papua New Guinea (in the western Pacific) without causing any special problems. The lack of male dominance may have been the result of the Australian administration's outlawing of warfare. According to contemporary research, males are dominant throughout Melanesia (although some believe that female witches have special powers). Others have argued that there is still much cultural variation throughout Melanesia, and especially in the large island of New Guinea. Moreover, anthropologists often overlook the significance of networks of political influence among females. The formal male dominated institutions typical of some areas of high population density were not, for example, present in the same way in Oksapmin, West Sepik Province, a more sparsely populated area. Cultural patterns there were different from, say, Mt. Hagen. They were closer to those described by Mead.

Mead stated that the Arapesh people, also in the Sepik, were pacifists, although she noted that they do on occasion engage in warfare. Her observations about the sharing of garden plots amongst the Arapesh, the egalitarian emphasis in child rearing, and her documentation of predominantly peaceful relations among relatives are very different from the "big man" displays of dominance that were documented in more stratified New Guinea cultures — e.g., by Andrew Strathern. They are a different cultural pattern.

In brief, her comparative study revealed a full range of contrasting gender roles:

"Among the Arapesh, both men and women were peaceful in temperament and neither men nor women made war.

"Among the Mundugumor, the opposite was true: both men and women were warlike in temperament.

"And the Tchambuli were different from both. The men 'primped' and spent their time decorating themselves while the women worked and were the practical ones — the opposite of how it seemed in early 20th century America."

Other research areas

Mead has been credited with persuading the American Jewish Committee to sponsor a project to study European Jewish villages, ''shtetls'', in which a team of researchers would conduct mass interviews with Jewish immigrants living in New York City. The resulting book, widely cited for decades, allegedly created the Jewish mother stereotype, a mother intensely loving but controlling to the point of smothering, and engendering guilt in her children through the suffering she professed to undertake for their sakes.

She also cofounded the Parapsychological Association, a group advocating for the advancement of parapsychology and psychical research.

Criticism

Derek Freeman, an anthropologist who spent many years among the Samoans, was critical of Mead's findings that culture is responsible for the disturbances of adolescence, and that Samoans had a significantly different experience. He wrote: Martin Orans, another anthropologist who worked in Samoa, wrote:

Legacy

On January 19, 1979, President Jimmy Carter announced that he was awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously to Mead. U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young presented the award to Mead's daughter at a special program honoring Mead's contributions, sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History, where she spent many years of her career. The citation read:

The 2006 music video for "If Everyone Cared" by Nickelback ends with her quote: "Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

In addition, there are several schools named after Margaret Mead in the United States: a junior high school in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, an elementary school in Sammamish, Washington and another in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, New York.

See also

Elsie Clews Parsons

Tim Asch

Visual anthropology

Zora Neale Hurston

Publications by Mead

;As a sole author

''Coming of Age in Samoa'' (1928) ISBN 0-688-05033-6

''Growing Up in New Guinea'' (1930) ISBN 0-688-17811-1

''The Changing Culture of an Indian Tribe'' (1932)

''Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies'' (1935)

''And Keep Your Powder Dry: An Anthropologist Looks at America'' (1942)

''Male and Female'' (1949) ISBN 0-688-14676-7

''New Lives for Old: Cultural Transformation in Manus, 1928-1953'' (1956)

''People and Places'' (1959; a book for young readers)

''Continuities in Cultural Evolution'' (1964)

''Culture and Commitment'' (1970)

''Blackberry Winter: My Earlier Years'' (1972; autobiography) ISBN 0-317-60065-6

;As editor or coauthor

''Cultural Patterns and Technical Change'', editor (1953)

''Primitive Heritage: An Anthropological Anthology'', edited with Nicholas Calas (1953)

''An Anthropologist at Work'', editor (1959, reprinted 1966; a volume of Ruth Benedict's writings)

''The Study of Culture At A Distance'', edited with Rhoda Metraux, 1953

''Themes in French Culture'', with Rhoda Metraux, 1954

''The Wagon and the Star: A Study of American Community Initiative'' co-authored with Muriel Whitbeck Brown, 1966

''A Rap on Race'', with James Baldwin, 1971

''A Way of Seeing'', with Rhoda Metraux, 1975

References

Bibliography

Bateson, Mary Catherine. (1984) ''With a Daughter's Eye: A Memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson'', New York: William Morrow. ISBN 0-688-03962-6

Caffey, Margaret M., and Patricia A. Francis, eds. (2006). ''To Cherish the Life of the World: Selected Letters of Margaret Mead''. New York: Basic Books.

Caton, Hiram, ed. (1990) ''The Samoa Reader: Anthropologists Take Stock'', University Press of America. ISBN 0-8191-7720-2

Foerstel, Leonora, and Angela Gilliam, eds. (1992). ''Confronting the Margaret Mead Legacy: Scholarship, Empire and the South Pacific''. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Freeman, Derek. (1983) ''Margaret Mead and Samoa'', Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-54830-2

Freeman, Derek. (1999) ''The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A Historical Analysis of Her Samoan Research'', Boulder, CO: Westview Press. ISBN 0-8133-3693-7

Holmes, Lowell D. (1987). ''Quest for the Real Samoa: the Mead/Freeman Controversy and Beyond''. South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey.

Howard, Jane. (1984). ''Margaret Mead: A Life'', New York: Simon and Schuster.

Keeley, Lawrence (1996). War Before Civilization: the Myth of the Peaceful Savage (Oxford University Press) ISBN 0195119126

Lapsley, Hilary. (1999). ''Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict: The Kinship of Women''. University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 1-55849-181-3

Lutkehaus, Nancy C. (2008). "Margaret Mead: The Making of an American Icon." Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-00941-4

Mead, Margaret. 1977. The Future as Frame for the Present. Audio recording of a lecture delivered July 11, 1977.

Pinker, Steven A. (1997). "How the Mind Works" ISBN 978-0-393-04535-8

Sandall, Roger. (2001) ''The Culture Cult: Designer Tribalism and Other Essays''. ISBN 0-8133-3863-8

Shore, Brad. (1982) ''Sala'ilua: A Samoan Mystery''. New York: Columbia University Press.

Virginia, Mary E. (2003). Benedict, Ruth (1887–1948). ''DISCovering U.S. History'' online edition, Detroit: Gale.

Jimmy Clemons

External links

Creative Intelligence: Female ("The Silent Revolution: Creative Man In Contemporary Society" Talk at UC Berkeley, 1962 (online audio file)

The Institute for Intercultural Studies - ethnographic institute founded by Mead, with resources relating to Mead's work

*Margaret Mead biography at IIS

Library of Congress, Margaret Mead: Human Nature and the Power of Culture

American Museum of Natural History, Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival

"Margaret Mead, 1901-1978: A Public Face of Anthropology": brief biography, Voice of America

Category:1901 births Category:1978 deaths Category:American anthropologists Category:American anthropology writers Category:American curators Category:American Episcopalians Category:American women writers Category:DePauw University alumni Category:Barnard College alumni Category:Columbia University alumni Category:Writers from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Category:Kalinga Prize recipients Category:Psychological anthropologists Category:Systems scientists Category:Visual anthropologists Category:Youth empowerment individuals Category:Women anthropologists Category:Deaths from pancreatic cancer Category:Cancer deaths in New York Category:People associated with the American Museum of Natural History Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

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Coordinates	33°51′35.9″N151°12′40″N
{{infobox writer | name	Richelle Mead | image RichelleMead.jpg | imagesize | caption Richelle Mead - September 2009 | pseudonym | birth_date November 12, 1976 | birth_place Michigan, United States | death_date | death_place | occupation Novelist | nationality American | period 2007– | genre Fantasy, Young adult fiction | subject | movement | influences | influenced | signature | website http://www.richellemead.com }}

Richelle Mead (born November 12, 1976) is a bestselling American fantasy author. She is known for the ''Georgina Kincaid'' series, ''Vampire Academy'', and the ''Dark Swan'' series. All are available internationally, including countries in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania.

Education and career

Richelle Mead was born in Michigan and now lives in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland, Washington. She has three degrees: a Bachelor of General Studies from the University of Michigan, a Master of Comparative Religion from Western Michigan University, and a Master of Teaching from the University of Washington. Her teaching degree led her to become an 8th grade teacher in suburban Seattle, where she taught social studies and English. She continued writing in her free time, until she sold her first novel, ''Succubus Blues''. After quitting her job to write full time, her other books quickly followed.

Mead actively writes books in three different series. The schedule for this is so demanding that she has to turn out a draft for a new book every three months. This is an extremely fast turnaround compared to the year that most authors take to write a book.

Bibliography

Novels

Georgina Kincaid series

# ''Succubus Blues'' (March 2007) # ''Succubus on Top'' (January 2008) (UK title: ''Succubus Nights'') # ''Succubus Dreams'' (October 2008) # ''Succubus Heat'' (June 2009) # ''Succubus Shadows'' (March 2010) # ''Succubus Revealed'' (August 2011)

Dark Swan series

# ''Storm Born'' (August 2008) # ''Thorn Queen'' (August 2009) # ''Iron Crowned'' (March 2011) # ''Shadow Heir'' (January 2012)

Young adult novels

Vampire Academy series

# ''Vampire Academy'' (August 2007) # ''Frostbite'' (April 2008) # ''Shadow Kiss'' (November 2008) # ''Blood Promise'' (August 2009) # ''Spirit Bound'' (May 2010) # ''Last Sacrifice (December 2010)

Bloodlines series

Mead will be writing a six-book spin off series featuring characters we have already met. There are four confirmed main characters: Sydney, Jill, Eddie, and Adrian. "Spin off series takes place in the same universe as Vampire Academy. Same rules, same races. What happens here is that the side characters from Vampire Academy are now the main characters. And so the series will be following Sydney, Jill, Adrian, and Eddie". Mead has confirmed that Bloodlines will be the name of both the series and the first book.

1. ''Bloodlines'' (23 August 2011)

2. ''The Golden Lily'' (Spring 2012)

Anthologies

''“Brushstrokes,”'' Dreams & Desires Vol. 1 (Freya’s Bower, February 2007) (featuring characters from the ''Georgina Kincaid'' series)

''“City of Demons,”'' Eternal Lover (Kensington, April 2008) (featuring characters from the ''Georgina Kincaid'' series)

''“Blue Moon,”'' Immortal: Love Stories With Bite (BenBella Books, August 2008)

''“Sunshine,”'' Kisses From Hell (HarperTeen, August 2010) (featuring characters from the ''Vampire Academy'' series)

Awards and recognitions

Nominee - 2007 Reviewers' Choice Awards - Best Urban Fantasy Novel - ''Succubus Blues'' Nominee - 2008 Reviewers' Choice Awards - Best Urban Fantasy Novel - ''Storm Born'' Honorable Mention - 2009 P.E.A.R.L. Awards - Best Romantic Fantasy - ''Thorn Queen'' Finalist - 2009 Children's Choice Book Awards - Teen Choice Book of the Year - ''Blood Promise'' American Library Association: 2008 Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers - ''Vampire Academy'' American Library Association: 2009 Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers - ''Frostbite'' Winner - 2010 Teen Read Awards - Best Teen Series - ''Vampire Academy series'' Nominee - 2010 Teen Read Awards - Best Hottie - ''Vampire Academy series'' Winner - 2010 Goodreads Choice Awards - Goodreads Author - Richelle Mead Nominee - 2010 Goodreads Choice Awards - Favorite Book of 2010 - ''Spirit Bound'' Nominee - 2010 Goodreads Choice Awards - Young Adult Fantasy - ''Last Sacrifice'' Nominee - 2010 Goodreads Choice Awards - Favorite Heroine - Rose Hathaway Nominee - 2010 Goodreads Choice Awards - Favorite Hero - Dimitri Belikov Nominee - 2010 Goodreads Choice Awards - Paranormal Fantasy - ''Succubus Shadows'' Nominee - 2011 Kids' Choice Awards - Favorite Book - ''Vampire Academy series'' Nominee - 2011 Children's Choice Book Awards - Teen Choice Book of the Year - ''Spirit Bound''

References

External links

Richelle Mead's official website

Category:American fantasy writers Category:Writers of young adult literature Category:Women novelists Category:1976 births Category:University of Michigan alumni Category:Western Michigan University alumni Category:University of Washington alumni Category:People from Kirkland, Washington Category:Writers from Seattle, Washington Category:Living people

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