Clifford Geertz
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Clifford James Geertz (born August 23, 1926 in San Francisco) is an American anthropologist serving as professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey.
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Life
After service in the U.S. Navy in World War II (1943-45), Geertz studied at Antioch College, receiving a B.A. in 1950, and at Harvard receiving his Ph.D. in 1956. He taught or held fellowships at a number of schools before joining the anthropology staff of the University of Chicago (1960-70); he then became professor of social science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton from 1970-2000, now emeritus. Geertz received a L.H.D. from Bates College in 1980.
Thought and works
At the University of Chicago, Geertz became a "champion of symbolic anthropology", which gives prime attention to the role of thought (of "symbols") in society. Symbols guide action. Culture, outlined by Geertz in his famous book The Interpretation of Cultures (1973), is "a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which people communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life." The function of culture is to impose meaning on the world and make it understandable. The role of anthropologists is to try (though complete success is not possible) to interpret the guiding symbols of each culture (see thick description).
He has conducted extensive ethnographical research in Southeast Asia and North Africa. He has also contributed to social and cultural theory and is still very influential in turning anthropology toward a concern with the frames of meaning within which various peoples live out their lives. He has worked on religion, most particularly Islam, on bazaar trade, on economic development, on traditional political structures, and on village and family life. He is presently working on the general question of ethnic diversity and its implications in the modern world.
Harvard professor and literary scholar Stephen Greenblatt identifies him as a strong influence, and Geertz acknowledges Greenblatt as a faithful interpreter of his work.
Major publications
- The Religion of Java (1960)
- Pedlars and Princes (1963)
- Agricultural Involution: the process of ecological change in Indonesia (1964)
- Islam Observed, Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia (1968)
- The Interpretation of Cultures (1973)
- Negara: The Theater State in Nineteenth Century Bali (1980)
- Local Knowledge (1983)
- Works and Lives (1988)
External links
- HyperGeertz@WorldCatalogue (Complete bibliography in all languages, including all translations and reprints, as well as manucripts and research reports)
- Interview of Clifford Geertz(video)
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- Clifford Geertz: A Life of Learning (Charles Homer Haskins Lecture for 1999)de:Clifford Geertz
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