Courtesy of Kathy Arthur
By Savannah Carr
Anthropology professors Dr. Kathy and Dr. John Arthur have had their share of interesting adventures — both together and apart — throughout their academic journeys.
The Arthurs met at the end of their undergraduate studies at the University of Texas.
John Arthur didn’t always plan on going into anthropology. In fact, he changed his major multiple times, exploring different ideas before selecting his major.
“I thought I was going to be a marine biologist. Then I switched to botany,” he said.
“Then I went into the chair’s office of botany at the University of Texas and he said, ‘We want you to work for Dow chemical company.’
“That was the last thing I wanted to do. I was the kind of person who wanted to save the whales, not make pesticides,” he said. “So, I got out of botany and I had a major called ‘lost.’”
He went on to take different classes for a year until he found himself in an archaeology class.
“I wandered into a summer archaeology class and I fell in love with it. I did a field school in the American southwest,” he said.
After graduating with his master’s degree from the University of Texas, John Arthur began his work in Africa for his doctorate at the University of Florida. His work in Ethiopia included studying potters, which led him to teaching about the archaeology of beer for the Brewing Arts Certificate here.
“I was working with women and how they were using their pots. I noticed on some of the pots, the inside was completely eroded, like someone had been chipping at it from the inside,” he said. “I asked the women what was going on, and they said, ‘The beer is eating the vessel.’ So, that led to a way to understand how to see beer in the archaeological record.”
Kathy Arthur, however, knew she wanted to study anthropology from a relatively young age.
“My dad studied anthropology, so I got introduced to anthropology early,” she said. “There was a man who used to take care of me after school, and he was an African American poet. He had a very Afrocentric perspective, and he told me a lot about Africa. So, I was just amazed. I decided then I would work in Africa.”
Throughout their journeys in the field, the Arthurs have had many interesting things occur, including multiple trips to Africa.
“The first time I went to Africa was in 1990 and I was just so excited. The house we stayed in had each room open to the outside and each room did not have a door — just cloth,” Kathy Arthur said. “The first night I wake up and I hear a lion roaring. It sounds like it is just right out front of my door, it was so loud.
“I was so freaked out that I did not sleep the rest of the night.”
When she woke up the next morning, nobody was talking about the lion roaring.
“Finally, someone asked me if I heard the lions and I said, ‘Yeah I did!’ They say my eyes got really big. So, they said they would show me the lions, and we walked a little bit and there the lions were — locked in a cage.
“So at the beginning of my career, literally my first night on the continent, I learned how wrong American preconceptions about Africa are! We have so many biases we need to dismiss and really get to know each other.”
