Inga Treitler is a native of…?  Well, never mind.  She is a native.  Or if she isn’t a native, she has studied a few.  Inga is a cultural anthropologist.  Everyone says that if they had it to do over again they would get a degree in cultural anthropology.  Well, if Inga had it to do again, she would do the same thing.

On a walk through a rainforest in Bali one day, with a hyacinth blossom behind one ear, Inga was greeted by a young Balinese girl who explained with a gesture that the flower was tucked behind the wrong ear.  As soon as Inga got back to the States she checked out every book she could find on cultural symbolism.  And when she was done reading she convinced several foundations to support her while she conducted research on art and meaning in the Caribbean.  She traveled by tiny puddle jumpers from one island to another, until she settled down in colorful, musical Antigua.

  When she is being Dr. Treitler, she is a fellow of the Society for Applied Anthropology (www.sfaa.net).  She lectures on topics of ethnography and anthropology in business for universities and corporations around the country.  She uses anthropology and ethnography in her consulting firm, The Terranova Group (www.terranova.tv), where she directs the ethnography programs.  When she is being Inga, she writes about the hidden realities of the world in her fiction pieces, one of which was published recently in Literary Lunch.   Inga is a Knoxville Writer’s Guild board member, and a screener for the Peter Taylor Prize.