Clifford Geertz
Clifford Geertz
Clifford James Geertzwas an American anthropologist who is remembered mostly for his strong support for and influence on the practice of symbolic anthropology, and who was considered "for three decades...the single most influential cultural anthropologist in the United States." He served until his death as professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth23 August 1926
CountryUnited States of America
criticism research persuasive
The point of literary criticism in anthropology is not to replace research, but to find out how it is that we are persuasive.
thinking trying foxes
I'm an inveterate fox and not a hedgehog, so I always think you should try everything
ethnography should straightforward
Most anthropologists are doing straightforward ethnography, and should
oddities people may
It may be in the cultural particularities of people — in their oddities — that some of the most instructive revelations of what it is to be generically human are to be found.
thinking neurology uncertain
I think what's known about neurology is still scattered and uncertain
thinking world american-universities
I think the American university system still seems to be the best system in the world
names numbers done
Younger anthropologists have the notion that anthropology is too diverse. The number of things done under the name of anthropology is just infinite; you can do anything and call it anthropology
people asking different
People keep asking how anthropology is different from sociology, and everybody gets nervous.
writing want information
If I remember correctly, a writer is someone who wants to convey information. Language or writing is a code
data people construction
What we call our data are really our own constructions of other people’s constructions of what they and their compatriots are up to.
mother brother horse
The North African mule talks always of his mother's brother, the horse, but never of his father, the donkey, in favor of others supposedly more reputable.
mean thinking intuition
The way in which mathematicians and physicists and historians talk is quite different, and what a physicist means by physical intuition and what a mathematician means by beauty or elegance are things worth thinking about.
writing research literature
I've often been accused of making anthropology into literature, but anthropology is also field research. Writing is central to it.
writing done ends
I don't write drafts. I write from the beginning to the end, and when it's finished, it's done