Biography

Heather Paxson is interested in how people craft a sense of themselves as moral beings in their everyday lives, especially through activities having to do with family and food. She is the author of two ethnographic monographs: Making Modern Mothers: Ethics and Family Planning in Urban Greece (University of California Press, 2004)a study of changing ideologies and practices of motherhood and fertility control in Athens, and The Life of Cheese: Crafting Food and Value in America (University of California Press, 2013), analyzing how craftwork has become a new source of cultural and economic value within American landscapes of production and consumption. Her current work concerns the practical and semiotic work of moving perishable foods across international borders. After serving as Area Editor for the James Beard Award-winning Oxford Companion to Cheese, she co-edited Cultural Anthropology from 2018-2022.  At MIT, Heather teaches courses on food, family, craft, ethnographic research, and the meaning of life.  She received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Stanford University and B.A. from Haverford College.

Research

Anthropology of Food

Through telling the stories of American artisanal cheeses and the people who make them, The Life of Cheese: Crafting Food and Value in America details the challenges of making a life and a living through artisan production. Artisanal cheeses are alive with meaning, and also with the activity of organisms large and microscopic. They are "unfinished" commodities—living products whose qualities are not fully settled—that embody old and new American ideas about taste, labor, and value.

Eating beside Ourselves: Thresholds of Foods and Bodies examines eating as a site of transfer and transformation across bodies and selves. Contributors to this volume examine how food and eating create thresholds for human and nonhuman relations, thresholds that mediate states of living and dying, conditions of edibility and inedibility, and relations between living organisms and their surrounding environments. Acts of eating and the process of metabolism are shown to partake in the making and unmaking of multispecies ontologies, taxonomies, and ecologies. Open Access versions available here and here.

Anthropology of Reproduction

In the 1990s, Heather conducted doctoral fieldwork in Athens, Greece, investigating changing ideas about motherhood and fertility control in this child-loving Mediterranean society where the abortion rate is twice the national birth rate. Making Modern Mothers: Ethics and Family Planning in Urban Greece argues that Athenian women incorporated abortion into a moral—indeed, maternal—framework, in which it may be better to interrupt a pregnancy than to raise a child inadequately. But there is more to the story. Amidst nationalist concern over declining birth rates, the increased consumption of reproductive technologies and consumer goods generates profound ambivalence in Athenians' moral evaluations of abortion, contraception, and in vitro fertilization. At stake are ideas about what it means to be Greek—or more particularly, a Greek woman or man—in the contemporary world.

Selected Publications

Teaching

21A.111J / WGS.172J
For Love and Money: Rethinking the Family

This course introduces students to the anthropological study of the social institutions and symbolic meanings of family, household, gender, and sexuality. We will explore the myriad forms that families and households take and evaluate their social, emotional, and economic dynamics. In particular, we will analyze how people's expectations for, and experiences of, family life are rooted in or challenged by particular conceptions of gender and sexuality.
course website

21A.155
Food, Culture and Politics

In eating, humans incorporate into our very bodies the products of nature (e.g., plant and animal resources) turned into culture (food). This course explores connections between what we eat and who we are through cross-cultural study of how personal identities and social groups are formed via food production, preparation, distribution, and consumption. Readings are organized around critical discussion of what makes good food good (e.g., nutritious, safe, tasty, authentic, ethical). A primary goal of the course is to provide students with theoretical and empirical tools to understand and evaluate food systems at local and global levels.
course website

21A.157
The Meaning of Life

This course examines how a variety of cultural traditions propose answers to the question of how to live a meaningful life and considers meaning of life, not as a philosophical abstraction, but as a question that individuals grapple with in their daily lives forcing difficult decisions between meeting and defying cultural expectations.  This course provides tools for thinking about moral decisions, social and historical practices, and permits students to compare and contextualize the ways people in different times and places approach fundamental ethical concerns.  Co-taught with Stefan Helmreich, Graham Jones, and Manduhai Buyandelger.
course website

21A.501J / STS.074J
Art, Craft, Science

As realms of practical knowledge, what distinguishes art, craft, and science? How do people learn, practice, and evaluate traditional and contemporary craft techniques? To address such questions, this course reviews theories of design, embodiment, apprenticeship learning, skill, labor, expertise, and tacit knowledge. We also discuss the commoditization of craft into market goods, collectible art, and tourism industries. Ethnographic and historical case studies include textiles, Shaker furniture, glassblowing, quilting, cheesemaking, industrial design, home and professional cooking, factory and laboratory work, CAD-CAM. In-class demonstrations, a field trip, and hands-on craft projects are included.

Awards

News

Heather Paxson named associate dean for faculty of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

Michael Brindley | School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

April 19, 2024

MIT professor Heather Paxson has been named associate dean for faculty of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS), effective July 1.

Agustin Rayo, the Kenan Sahin Dean of SHASS, describes Paxson as a leader of exceptional vision.

“As section head, she has positioned Anthropology as a key player in the issues of our day and has implemented an exemplary model of mentorship for junior faculty. She is an essential advisor to the school, and I cannot think of a better person to reimagine SHASS's efforts to create an inspiring and equitable working environment for our faculty and staff,” says Rayo.

Living Climate Futures 2022 MIT Anthro DV Lab Videos

April 21, 2023

Students from MIT Anthropology's DV Lab class shot footage documenting 2022's Living Climate Futures events including: Indigenous Earth Day, Environmental Justice and Climate Resilience Tour at GreenRoots in Chelsea, and EcoTown Workshop Event.

Living Climate Futures Event Shows a Holistic Way Forward in Climate Fight

article by Stephanie M. McPherson

May 2, 2022

The sun shone bright and warm on the Dertouzos Amphitheater at the Stata Center this past Earth Day. A banner stating “Our Future is Fossil Free — Divest Now” waved from between two trees as a panel of Indigenous leaders and thinkers from across the country talked about their experiences with climate activism and their worldviews that place humanity as one with the rest of the Earth.

"Culture is a meaning-making practice" - Heather Paxson in "Said and Done"

Heather Paxson | SHASS "Said and Done" Magazine | photo by Allegra Boverman

April 15, 2022

Series: Points of View | On Culture

In this ongoing series sponsored by the Office of Tracie Jones, MIT SHASS Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, faculty and staff in MIT's humanistic fields share ideas, stories, and research-based commentary on the nature of culture and their experiences as part of the MIT community. We are honored that this inaugural commentary for the series is from Heather Paxson, the William Kenan Professor of Anthropology, head of MIT Anthropology, and a MacVicar Faculty Fellow. In this commentary, Professor Paxson provides some foundational thinking about how her field of anthropology — the scientific study of humanity including societies, behavior, cultural meaning, norms, and values — understands the concept of culture. 

Announcing Relata - A Critical Search Tool

February 25, 2021

What might scholarly search look like if it privileged values of pluralism and critique? Relata, an experimental search tool based at MIT and developed in cooperation with Society for Cultural Anthropology, centers not individual works but the analytical moves or relations between them.

Case studies show climate variation linked to rise and fall of medieval nomadic empires

Alice McBride | EAPS News | Photo Credit: Bernd Thaller

November 30, 2020

Coverage of the virtual lecture "Climate, History, and Nomadic Empires: Case Studies and Questions of Method," co-sponsored by MIT Anthropology, History. and EAPS

Guest Lecturer: Nicola Di Cosmo, featuring Anthropology Program Head Heather Paxson, an introduction by MIT History's Tristan Brown, and commentary from co-discussants David McGee and Manduhai Buyandelger.

 

Professor Heather Paxson is interviewed for the series, "Computing and AI: Humanistic Perspectives from MIT"

September 26, 2019

Professor Heather Paxson shares her thoughts on why anthropological methods are "uniquely suited for studying the effects of automation and digital technologies in social life".

Links

“Living Climate Futures showcases holistic approach,” MIT News

“The Safety of Fermented Foods,” Fermentology

“Opening Access to AAA’s Publishing Future” (Fieldsights)

“Relata: An Experimental Search Tool for Humanistic Scholarship”

Video: Thought for Food

"Against the Common Gouda" (MIT News Office)

"Ecologies of Value" (Harvard Gazette)

"Cutting the Curd Book Review - an Interview with Heather Paxson" (Heritage Radio Network)

"On the Post-Pasteurian" (CASTAC Blog)

Risk Perception & Categorization: Artisanship in the 21st Century (video)