In this collection of essays, Clifford Geertz explores the nature of his anthropological work in relation to a broader public, serving as the foremost spokesperson of his generation of scholars, those who came of age after World War II. ...

The paper is one of the four central texts where Clifford Geertz summarized his ideas. Geertz suggests an understanding of art as a social phenomenon and gives a social anthropological account of aesthetic experience. In opposition to structuralism, which analyzes art as a closed sign system developing according to its inherent logic, and to radical functionalism, which attempts to study art as if its main function was to maintain established institutions of culture, Geertz proposes to view (...) a work of art as a symbolical expression of the significant experience of its creator. In this case the ability of aesthetic perception of the work of art is treated as the ability to recognize the symbols it contains — the ability that results from involvement in the relevant cultural practices. Author illustrates his argument by the examples from the studies of that time: studies of Abelam tribe of New Guinea, Yoruba people of Western Africa, Quattrocento Italia, and modern Morocco. (shrink)

Clifford Geertz was perhaps the most influential anthropologist of our time, but his influence extended far beyond his field to encompass all facets of contemporary life. Nowhere were his gifts for directness, humor, and steady revelation more evident than in the pages of the New York Review of Books, where for nearly four decades he shared his acute vision of the world in all its peculiarity. This book brings together the finest of Geertz's review essays from the (...) New York Review along with a representative selection of later pieces written at the height of his powers, some that first appeared in periodicals such as Dissent, others never before published. This collection exemplifies Geertz's extraordinary range of concerns, beginning with his first essay for the Review in 1967, in which he reviews, with muffled hilarity, the anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski. This book includes Geertz's unflinching meditations on Western academia's encounters with the non-Western world, and on the shifting and clashing places of societies in the world generally. Geertz writes eloquently and arrestingly about such major figures as Gandhi, Foucault, and Genet, and on topics as varied as Islam, globalization, feminism, and the failings of nationalism. Life among the Anthros and Other Essays demonstrates Geertz's uncommon wisdom and consistently keen and hopeful humor, confirming his status as one of our most important and enduring public intellectuals. (shrink)

At the founding editor’s invitation in 1991–92, the members of the editorial board and the department editors of Common Knowledge wrote individual and small-group calls for papers to be published in the inaugural issue of Spring 1992 and the succeeding issue, Fall 1992. This call for papers was published among the first group.

L’attuale riabilitazione dell’etnocentrismo, benchè si tratti di un etnocentrismo rilassato e condiscendente, affonda le sue radici in una concezione monadologica della pluralità delle culture che trascura il fatto che, nella realtà contemporanea, il confronto con l’altrui diversità può contribuire innanzitutto a una migliore comprensione di noi stessi. In un simile contesto l’immaginazione etnografica rappresenta senza dubbio un antidoto al narcisismo morale in quanto ci offre gli strumenti migliori per perlustrare quello spazio intermedio che sta tra noi e quegli ‘altri’ che (...) nelle società contemporanee sono sempre più spesso al nostro fianco. Principalmente in ciò consistono ‘gli usi della diversità’ : nel rafforzare la nostra capacità di immaginare la differenza.Today’s rehabilitation of ethnocentrism, though a ‘relax-and-enjoy-it’ one, is rooted in a ‘monadologic’ conception of cultural plurality which overlooks the fact that, in the contemporary predicament, to be confronted with the other’s diversity may primarily mean a better understanding of ourselves. In such a context, the ethnographic imagination is undoubtedly an antidote to the moral narcissism, in so far as it allows us to explore the space that lies between us and those ‘others’ who, in our societies are for the most part among us. This is what ‘uses of diversity’ primarily means: empowering our ability to imagine difference. (shrink)

The Anthropology of Sport and Human Movement represents a collection of work that reveals and explores the often times dramatic relationship of our biology and culture that is inextricably woven into a tapestry of movement patterns. It explores the underpinning of human movement, reflected in play, sport, games and human culture from an evolutionary perspective and contemporary expression of sport and human movement.

The idea that the mind, i.e., common sense, is not an inherent human structure but a cultural system, has become a general assumption taken for granted by many. Richard Rorty’s post-Philosophical culture serves as an illustrative example. One of the most renowned representatives of the radical critique of the mind, i.e., of common sense, is the cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz. He believes that we are in need of an ethnography based on the “thick description”. Geertz’s insights have (...) strongly influenced the postliberal theologians. Consequently, the centre of the theology—the faith—has once again been obscured. Therefore, this article seeks to emphasize the importance of faith, based on Josef Pieper’s sagacious insights. (shrink)

The idea that the mind, i.e., common sense, is not an inherent human structure but a cultural system, has become a general assumption taken for granted by many. Richard Rorty’s post-Philosophical culture serves as an illustrative example. One of the most renowned representatives of the radical critique of the mind, i.e., of common sense, is the cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz. He believes that we are in need of an ethnography based on the “thick description”. Geertz’s insights have (...) strongly influenced the postliberal theologians. Consequently, the centre of the theology—the faith—has once again been obscured. Therefore, this article seeks to emphasize the importance of faith, based on Josef Pieper’s sagacious insights. (shrink)

This is the first full-scale study of the work of Clifford Geertz, who is one of the best-known anthropologists in the world today.

This article, written by a Russian cultural historian, analyzes the concept of "ideology" in the work of Clifford Geertz. and his role in understanding the figurative nature of ideology as a cultural system. The author compares Geertz's semiotic approach to culture with thesemiotics of culture developed by Russian theorists, particularly Yuri Lotman, showing the convergence and divergence of the two differentnational traditions. This understanding of the nature and functions of ideology opens new possibilities for discussing the tortured (...) relations of ideology and literature, showing the way fiction can affect the formation of ideological systems and influence practical politics. The analysis is illustrated by examples from Russian political life of the 1990s, when revolutionary changes demanded new sets of ideological metaphors that in their turn shaped the direction of events. (shrink)

Human experience has a symbolic structure. By focusing on the symbolism of human action, this essay considers the reciprocal influences and the essential differences between Paul Ricœur’s hermeneutics and Clifford Geertz’s cultural anthropology. Through reference to Ricœur’s Lectures on Ideology and Utopia, the section on “Ideology, Utopia, and Politics” in From Text to Action, and Geertz’s 1973 book The Interpretation of Cultures, this paper aims at reconstructing the dialogue between these thinkers. I begin with a broad framing (...) of the encounter between Ricœur and Geertz, and then turn to the notion of the symbolic mediation of action, considering it as the shared key concept between these authors. These reflections will lead to an examination of the semiotic conception of culture, opening up the discussion of a nonpejorative dimension of ideology. (shrink)

This paper will defend scientific study of the social by scrutinizing Clifford Geertz's interpretive anthropology, and evolutionary psychologists' criticism of it. I shall critically examine Geertz's identification of anthropology with literary criticism, his assumption that a science of society is possible only on a positivist model, his view of the relation between culture and mind, and his anti anti-relativism. Then I shall discuss evolutionary psychologists' criticism of Geertz's view as an exemplar of the so-called "Standard Social (...) Science Model." Finally, I shall claim that both Geertz and evolutionary psychologists misunderstand the aim of the social sciences, which is to explain the unintended consequences of human actions in institutional contexts. Key Words: Clifford Geertz • evolutionary psychology • interpretive anthropology • positivism • Standard Social Science Model (SSSM). (shrink)

This essay clarifies and defends the methodological multidimensionality and improvisational character of Clifford Geertz’s account of interpretation and explanation. In contrast to accounts of power analysis offered by Michel Foucault and Talal Asad, I argue that Geertz’s work can simultaneously attend to meaning, power, identity, and experience in understanding and assessing religious practices and cultural formations.

Uno de los antropólogos más importantes del siglo XX es Clifford Geertz. Aunque muchos académicos han dicho que su obra se ha quedado anticuada, la verdad es que sus afirmaciones no se han estudiado aún en profundidad. Las propuestas antropológicas de Geertz no se pueden entender sin sus presupuestos filosóficos, especialmente los de Wittgenstein y Ricoeur. En ese caso, la explicación de su relación podría ofrecer nuevos caminos para las humanidades y la mutua comprensión entre filosofía y (...) antropología. “Descripción gruesa” y “cultura como texto” son conceptos en los que estas relaciones resultan claras y aprovechables. Este artículo tratará de mostrar los fundamentos de estos conceptos de una nueva manera. La hermenéutica implica un punto de vista metafísico específico y resulta imposible que la antropología cultural opere sin hipótesis filosóficas. La religión es el principal concepto que se necesita para clarificar esto. El dolor y el sufrimiento son, a causa de esto, dos ideas sin sentido que aparecen en la vida humana, y los estudios antropológicos de Geertz resuelven esta relación. (shrink)

The intellectual trajectories of social scientists Robert N. Bellah and Clifford Geertz are compared as a case study in the production of successful interdisciplinary work. Geertz and Bellah started from a similar position, in terms of scholarly habits, network centrality, and symbolic capital. However, while Geertz became an interdisciplinary star and left his mark in disciplines as diverse as history, sociology, and cultural studies, Bellah’s interdisciplinary appeal was more limited, while his ability to speak to the (...) general public as a public intellectual was unmatched by Geertz. We thus review Bellah’s and Geertz’s parallel careers using a multidimensional analytical model intended to complete current field-based and performative-pragmatist models of intellectual success, arguing that interdisciplinary success can be accounted for by a combination of local ecological factors, images of intellectual work, and texts showing a high degree of cross-disciplinary fluency. (shrink)

This article examines literature from cultural anthropology for insights into ethics. It particularly addresses the moral issue of justly understanding those people different from oneself. Clifford Geertz, pragmatist as well as anthropologist, draws upon the rhetorical theory of Kenneth Burke in his 1988 book Works and Lives. Just this sort of cross-disciplinary borrowing offers resources for understanding what were once religiously-based ethics in a humanistic context. The rhetorical style of various cultural anthropologists serves to inform the rhetorical forms (...) of appeal of theistic and non- theistic ethics. (shrink)