Mary Ann Tétreault died peacefully in her sleep at home in Newport, Vermont, on Wednesday, November 11. Mary Ann was a spectacular human being, a gifted intellectual, and a generous mentor and friend.
She earned her undergraduate degree at Sarah Lawrence College and her Masters and PhD at Rice University. She wrote her dissertation on the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries. She taught at Old Dominion University and Iowa State University before moving to Trinity University in San Antonio, where she was the Una Chapman Cox Distinguished Professor of International Affairs from 2000 to 2012.
Trinity's Sussan Siavoshi remembers Mary Ann's “unbound intellectual energy and her interest in everything, from the most mundane to the most profound.” She cherishes also Mary Ann's hennaed hair and her laughter. Nannette Le Coat adds, “We all miss Mary Ann's passionate commitment to human values and the intellectual energy she brought to the study of international politics on the Trinity campus.”
Mary Ann mentored, guided, and inspired generations of students. She taught more than fifty different courses over her career and once wrote, “To me, the greatest enemy of democracy and autonomy is ignorance. My goals in teaching are not only to transmit knowledge, but also the skills and confidence that will enable students to continue to educate themselves throughout life.” Her homepage speaks volumes. She writes, “A T-shirt slogan of my youth was ‘question authority.’ To that, I say ‘Amen,’ even when I am the authority.”
Mary Ann pioneered many aspects of the study of the Middle East that are now taken for granted. She wrote extensively about women, oil, political economy, social movements, norms, human rights, democracy and all things about Kuwait. Women were the focus of many of her projects “because the actions and experiences of women are often so different from men that they enable me to test global theories—which I often find wanting.”
Among her prolific publications are three books on oil. Ellis Goldberg writes, “her book on the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries published in 1981 was hands down the most complete book written about it. It was a ‘technical tour de force’ and the most imaginative and whimsically insightful thing I've ever read about the oil industry. Mary Ann was an avid investigator of fault lines whether in parliamentary politics, women's liberation, or even the price of oil.”
Mohamed Al Ghanim recalls, “Her work never failed to offer original and often missing nuances to the topics she scrutinized. She contributed greatly to unraveling complex dynamics facing the Middle East and Kuwait especially.” Mary Ann's book Stories of Democracy: Politics and Society in Contemporary Kuwait is still used in classrooms even though it was published in 2000. Farah Al-Nakib credits Mary Ann for establishing “the foundation that those of us who write about Kuwait continue to build on. I owe much of my career to her, but it is the joy and warmth of her friendship that I will miss most.”
Mary Ann also wrote Global Politics as if People Mattered with Ronnie Lipschutz (2005).Her final book, Political Change in the Arab Gulf States: Stuck in Transition was coedited by Andrezej Kapiszewski and me.
Mary Ann was something of a rebel and always tackled hard issues head on. Donna Lee Bowen remembers that “Mary Ann had one of the most incisive intellects I have been exposed to—her powers of logic and judicious thought were astounding. She employed these abilities in a continual search for human justice.”
She was very active in the International Studies Association and the International Political Economy section awarded her the Distinguished Scholar Award in 2012. She also served on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Arabian Studies.
Mary Ann was an exuberant spirit and she loved friends, family, food, drink, laughter and rollicking conversation. Her generosity knew no bounds. She had a special knack for bringing people together who would then become life-long friends. Lynne Rienner adds: “I will always miss Mary Ann . . . her heart . . . her glowing hair . . . her just plain feistiness . . . and of course all the rest. To know her was (and still is) to love her . . . so though it may seem strange, I feel lucky to be able to miss her.”
Upon retirement in 2012, Mary Ann moved to her home in Vermont. She continued to inspire others and was writing on Gulf security and education even in 2015. But she made sure to tend her beloved garden with its plethora of produce—peas, cherries, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers—and to rejoice in hummingbirds, grosbeaks and other feathered creatures. As they have for over twenty years, she and her husband made their “annual hijra to Iowa” to enjoy three performances by the DesMoines Metro Opera Company.
Mary Ann embraced life fully with all its challenges and opportunities. She is survived by her husband Richard, and their two sons, Paul and Charles.
