Heather Paxson
Associate Dean for Faculty; William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Anthropology
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.
