PhD | Anthropology | Faculty & Curriculum Chair
Mary Grow is a cultural anthropologist, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Her career began in the under the mentorship of John T. Hitchcock with whom she studied Himalayan anthropology, an opportunity that took her to Dalhousie, India to work with Tibetan refugees during the mid-1970s. Years later Mary turned her attention to Southeast Asia and began working in Thailand. A Fulbright scholar, she conducted fieldwork in Phetchaburi province, and researched on one of Thailand’s oldest extant forms of dance-drama, lakhon chatri.
Mary teaches several cultural anthropology courses at Taliesin: ‘Landscape & House: Perspectives from Cultural Anthropology,’ “The Social Life of Spaces,’ and ‘Apprenticeship in Cross-Cultural Perspective.’ All of her courses include fieldwork exercises that engage students in better understanding how people respond and contribute to the built environment. Most recently students in her apprenticeship class explored the history and development of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin Fellowship. Their fieldwork interviews were published in a limited edition entitled Apprenticeship: Fellowship & Fieldnotes to celebrate the school’s 75th anniversary.
Mary has published with The Journal of the Siam Society, Asian Theatre Journal, Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Journal of Family Medicine, Smithsonian Institution, Yale University Press, and University of Chicago Press. Her photos and video projects have been archived with the Smithsonian Institution and the National Library of Thailand.
Mary and her husband, artist and illustrator Jean-Marc Richel, live in Spring Green, Wisconsin where they are an active part of the community. Both have greatly enjoyed contributing to the creative life and spirit of Taliesin and the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture.
Fieldwork: Mary in Thailand with dance-drama performers.
Jean-Marc Richel, Chuck Wyman, Angela McJunkin, & Mary Grow - outside Red Square - publicity photo for poetry reading of "Prose of the Trans-Siberian" by Blaise Cendrars
Poetry performance at Red Squared (see poem title and names above). Set design Jean-Marc Richel & Aris Georges.