Clifford James Geertz (August 23, 1926, San Francisco – October 30, 2006, Philadelphia) was an American anthropologist and served until his death as professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey. August 23 is the 235th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (236th in leap years), with 130 days remaining. ... 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar). ... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ... October 30 is the 303rd day of the year (304th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 62 days remaining. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... Nickname: Motto: Philadelphia maneto - Let brotherly love continue Location in Pennsylvania Coordinates: Country United States Commonwealth Pennsylvania County Philadelphia Founded October 27, 1682 Incorporated October 25, 1701 Government  - Mayor John F. Street (D) Area  - City 369. ... See Anthropology. ... A professor is a senior teacher and researcher, usually in a college or university. ... Fuld Hall The Institute for Advanced Study is a private institution in Princeton Township, New Jersey, U.S.A., designed to foster pure cutting-edge research by scientists and scholars in a variety of fields without the complications of teaching or funding, or the agendas of sponsorship. ... Nassau Street, Princetons main street. ...

Life

Clifford Geertz was born in San Francisco, California on August 23, 1926. After service in the U.S. Navy in World War II (1943–45), Geertz received his B.A. in philosophy from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, OH in 1950, and his Ph.D. in 1956 Harvard University, where he had studied social anthropology in the Department of Social Relations. 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 to 2000, then emeritus professor. Geertz received Honorary Doctorate Degrees from some 15 colleges and universities, including Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Cambridge. Clifford Geertz died of complications following heart surgery on October 30, 2006. August 23 is the 235th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (236th in leap years), with 130 days remaining. ... 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar). ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Antioch College is a private, independent liberal arts college in Yellow Springs, Ohio. ... 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday. ... Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated Ph. ... Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and a member of the Ivy League. ... The University of Chicago is a private university located principally in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. ... October 30 is the 303rd day of the year (304th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 62 days remaining. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ...

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" (1973:89). 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). His oft-cited essay, "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight," included in The Interpretation of Cultures, is the classic of example of thick description at work. Geertz was quite innovative in this regard, as he was one of the first to see that the insights provided by common language philosophy and literary analysis could have major explanatory force in the social sciences. Symbolic anthropology (or more broadly, symbolic and interpretive anthropology) is a diverse set of approaches within cultural anthropology that view culture as a symbolic system that arises primarily from human interpretations of the world. ... Thick description is a phrase used most famously by the anthropologist Clifford Geertz to describe his own specific mode of practice. ...

He conducted extensive ethnographical research in Southeast Asia and North Africa. He 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 worked on religion, most particularly Islam, on bazaar trade, on economic development, on traditional political structures, and on village and family life. At the time of his death he was working on the general question of ethnic diversity and its implications in the modern world. Ethnography (from the Greek ethnos = people and graphein = writing) refers to the genre of writing that presents varying degrees of qualitative and quantitative descriptions of human social phenomena, based on fieldwork. ... Location of Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is a subregion of Asia. ...  Northern Africa (UN subregion)  geographic North Africa, including the UN subregion North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, generally divided politically from Sub-Saharan Africa. ... Culture theory is the branch of anthropology and other related social science disciplines (e. ... Anthropology (from Greek: ἀνθρωπος, anthropos, human being; and λόγος, logos, knowledge) is the comparative study of the physical and social characteristics of humanity through the examination of historical and present geographical distribution, cultural history, acculturation, and cultural relationships. ... Islam (Arabic:  ) is a monotheistic religion based upon the teachings of Muhammad, a 7th century Arab religious and political figure. ...

Geertz's career worked through, over time, a variety of phases and schools of thought. Gradually he came to see the limitations of each, and moved on. His final position was to take a strong view about objective reality of the complex social system of order. But he also recognised the difficulties that research has in getting at an adequate description of that objective reality: caused by the fact that people tell ethnographers what they believe to be their own motivations, but those people's actions then often seem to contradict their statements to the researcher. This effect is partly due to: the problems that ill-educated people have in verbalising aspects of their life that they usually take for granted; partly due to how ethnographers structure their research approaches and frameworks; and partly due to the inherent complexity of the social order.

Harvard professor and literary scholar Stephen Greenblatt identifies him as a strong influence, and Geertz acknowledged Greenblatt as a faithful interpreter of his work. Stephen Jay Greenblatt (born 1943) is a noted Shakespeare scholar and a literary critic/theorist often seen as the leader of the school known as New Historicism or as Greenblatt likes to put it, cultural poetics. He believes that all works of literature are a products of their times and...

Interlocutors

• Talal Asad
• Stephen Greenblatt

Talal Asad is an anthropoligist at the City University of New York who has made important theoretical contributions to Post-Colonialism, Christianity, Islam, and Ritual Studies and has recently called for, and initiated, an anthropology of Secularism. ... Stephen Jay Greenblatt (born 1943) is a noted Shakespeare scholar and a literary critic/theorist often seen as the leader of the school known as New Historicism or as Greenblatt likes to put it, cultural poetics. He believes that all works of literature are a products of their times and...

Major publications

• The Religion of Java (1960), University Of Chicago Press 1976 paperback: ISBN 0-226-28510-3
• Peddlers and Princes: Social Development and Economic Change in Two Indonesian Towns (1963), University Of Chicago Press 1968 paperback: ISBN 0-226-28514-6
• Agricultural Involution: the process of ecological change in Indonesia (1964)
• Islam Observed, Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia (1968), University Of Chicago Press 1971 paperback: ISBN 0-226-28511-1
• The Interpretation of Cultures (1973), Basic Books 2000 paperback: ISBN 0-465-09719-7
• Kinship in Bali (1975) coauthor: Hildred Geertz, University Of Chicago Press 1978 paperback: ISBN 0-226-28516-2
• Negara: The Theater State in Nineteenth Century Bali (1980), Princeton University Press 2001 paperback: ISBN 0-691-00778-0
• Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology (1983), Basic Books 2000 paperback: ISBN 0-465-04162-0
• Works and Lives: The Anthropologist As Author (1988), Stanford University Press 1990 paperback: ISBN 0-8047-1747-8
• After the Fact: Two Countries, Four Decades, One Anthropologist, Harvard University Press 1995 paperback: ISBN 0-674-00872-3
• Available Light: Anthropological Reflections on Philosophical Topics, Princeton University Press 2000 paperback: ISBN 0-691-08956-6

External articles and references

References

Books

• Geertz, C., Shweder, R. A., & Good, B. (2005). Clifford Geertz by his colleagues. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• University of Chicago, & Geertz, C. (1963). Old societies and new States; the quest for modernity in Asia and Africa. [New York]: Free Press of Glencoe.

Genral information

• Interview of Clifford Geertz(video)
• Big Ideas: Clifford Geertz
• Clifford Geertz: A Life of Learning (Charles Homer Haskins Lecture for 1999)
• Obituary at Institute for Advanced Study
• HyperGeertz WorldCatalogue extended bibliography