The Nature of Play: Part 1, River Otters

Gregory Bateson (1904–1980), one of the most original ethnographic theorists of the twentieth century, contributed to such fields as visual anthropology, psychotherapy, the theory of games and fantasy, second-order cybernetics, and social constructivism. His books include Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis, with Margaret Mead (New York Academy of Sciences, 1942); Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry, with Jurgen Ruesch (W.W. Norton, 1951); and Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology (University of Chicago Press, 1972).

The American poet Weldon Kees (1914–1956) was also a critic and an artist who worked in painting, filmmaking, theater, visual culture studies, and photography. In addition to many volumes of poetry and essays, he also wrote, with Jurgen Ruesch, Nonverbal Communication: Notes on the Visual Perception of Human Relations (University of California Press, 1956).