Background
Geertz, Clifford James was born on August 23, 1926 in San Francisco, California, United States. Son of Clifford James and Lois (Brieger) Geertz.
(The illusion that ethnography is a matter of sorting stra...)
The illusion that ethnography is a matter of sorting strange and irregular facts into familiar and orderly categories--this is magic, that is technology--has long since been exploded. What it is instead, however, is less clear. That it might be a kind of writing, putting things to paper, has now and then occurred to those engaged in producing it, consuming it, or both. But the examination of it as...
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FGVVX6I/?tag=2022091-20
( Combining great learning, interpretative originality, a...)
Combining great learning, interpretative originality, analytical sensitivity, and a charismatic prose style, Clifford Geertz has produced a lasting body of work with influence throughout the humanities and social sciences, and remains the foremost anthropologist in America. His 1980 book Negara analyzed the social organization of Bali before it was colonized by the Dutch in 1906. Here Geertz applied his widely influential method of cultural interpretation to the myths, ceremonies, rituals, and symbols of a precolonial state. He found that the nineteenth-century Balinese state defied easy conceptualization by the familiar models of political theory and the standard Western approaches to understanding politics. Negara means "country" or "seat of political authority" in Indonesian. In Bali Geertz found negara to be a "theatre state," governed by rituals and symbols rather than by force. The Balinese state did not specialize in tyranny, conquest, or effective administration. Instead, it emphasized spectacle. The elaborate ceremonies and productions the state created were "not means to political ends: they were the ends themselves, they were what the state was for.... Power served pomp, not pomp power." Geertz argued more forcefully in Negara than in any of his other books for the fundamental importance of the culture of politics to a society. Much of Geertz's previous work--including his world-famous essay on the Balinese cockfight--can be seen as leading up to the full portrait of the "poetics of power" that Negara so vividly depicts.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691007780/?tag=2022091-20
( In essays covering everything from art and common sense...)
In essays covering everything from art and common sense to charisma and constructions of the self, the eminent cultural anthropologist and author of The Interpretation of Cultures deepens our understanding of human societies through the intimacies of "local knowledge." A companion volume to The Interpretation of Cultures, this book continues Geertz's exploration of the meaning of culture and the importance of shared cultural symbolism. With a new introduction by the author.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465041620/?tag=2022091-20
( "In four brief chapters," writes Clifford Geertz in his...)
"In four brief chapters," writes Clifford Geertz in his preface, "I have attempted both to lay out a general framework for the comparative analysis of religion and to apply it to a study of the development of a supposedly single creed, Islam, in two quite contrasting civilizations, the Indonesian and the Moroccan." Mr. Geertz begins his argument by outlining the problem conceptually and providing an overview of the two countries. He then traces the evolution of their classical religious styles which, with disparate settings and unique histories, produced strikingly different spiritual climates. So in Morocco, the Islamic conception of life came to mean activism, moralism, and intense individuality, while in Indonesia the same concept emphasized aestheticism, inwardness, and the radical dissolution of personality. In order to assess the significance of these interesting developments, Mr. Geertz sets forth a series of theoretical observations concerning the social role of religion.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226285111/?tag=2022091-20
( Clifford Geertz, one of the most influential thinkers o...)
Clifford Geertz, one of the most influential thinkers of our time, here discusses some of the most urgent issues facing intellectuals today. In this collection of personal and revealing essays, he 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. His reflections are written in a style that both entertains and disconcerts, as they engage us in topics ranging from moral relativism to the relationship between cultural and psychological differences, from the diversity and tension among activist faiths to "ethnic conflict" in today's politics. Geertz, who once considered a career in philosophy, begins by explaining how he got swept into the revolutionary movement of symbolic anthropology. At that point, his work began to encompass not only the ethnography of groups in Southeast Asia and North Africa, but also the study of how meaning is made in all cultures--or, to use his phrase, to explore the "frames of meaning" in which people everywhere live out their lives. His philosophical orientation helped him to establish the role of anthropology within broader intellectual circles and led him to address the work of such leading thinkers as Charles Taylor, Thomas Kuhn, William James, and Jerome Bruner. In this volume, Geertz comments on their work as he explores questions in political philosophy, psychology, and religion that have intrigued him throughout his career but that now hold particular relevance in light of postmodernist thinking and multiculturalism. Available Light offers insightful discussions of concepts such as nation, identity, country, and self, with a reminder that like symbols in general, their meanings are not categorically fixed but grow and change through time and place. This book treats the reader to an analysis of the American intellectual climate by someone who did much to shape it. One can read Available Light both for its revelation of public culture in its dynamic, evolving forms and for the story it tells about the remarkable adventures of an innovator during the "golden years" of American academia.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691089566/?tag=2022091-20
( "A remarkably interesting account of Indonesian agricul...)
"A remarkably interesting account of Indonesian agricultural history, primarily covering the period of Dutch control, from 1619 to 1942. Drawing on ecology, sociology, and economics, Geertz...provides an insightful and persuasive analysis."—The Annals "If colonial geography ever succeeds in establishing itself as a discrete and integral focus of inquiry, it may well date its majority to the publication of Agricultural Involution."—Geographical Record "A brilliant and superbly written study...an incisive, even frightening description of the most crucial dilemma in contemporary Indonesia."—Agricultural History "A valuable and important study...in which source materials from history, economics, soil science, geography and other fields are brilliantly marshalled and interrelated. But besides being an exemplary study in the interaction of history, physical environment and agricultural technology, this book represents a watershed between narrowly conceived ethnographies and the flood of verbose and ill digested post-war 'technology-and-social-change' monographs that are wont to aim high and hit wide...A model of comparative analytical writing."—Man
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520004590/?tag=2022091-20
( Written with a rare combination of analysis and specula...)
Written with a rare combination of analysis and speculation, this comprehensive study of Javanese religion is one of the few books on the religion of a non-Western people which emphasizes variation and conflict in belief as well as similarity and harmony. The reader becomes aware of the intricacy and depth of Javanese spiritual life and the problems of political and social integration reflected in the religion. The Religion of Java will interest specialists in Southeast Asia, anthropologists and sociologists concerned with the social analysis of religious belief and ideology, students of comparative religion, and civil servants dealing with governmental policy toward Indonesia and Southeast Asia.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226285103/?tag=2022091-20
( In a closely observed study of two Indonesian towns, Cl...)
In a closely observed study of two Indonesian towns, Clifford Geertz analyzes the process of economic change in terms of people and behavior patterns rather than income and production. One of the rare empirical studies of the earliest stages of the transition to modern economic growth, Peddlers and Princes offers important facts and generalizations for the economist, the sociologist, and the South East Asia specialist. "Peddlers and Princes is, like much of Geertz's other writing, eminently rewarding . . . Case study and broader theory are brought together in an illuminating marriage."—Donald Hindley, Annals of The American Academy of Political and Social Science "What makes the book fascinating is the author's capacity to relate his anthropological findings to questions of central concern to the economist . . . "—H. G. Johnson, Journal of Political Economy
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226285146/?tag=2022091-20
( This work constitutes the first book-length examination...)
This work constitutes the first book-length examination of Balinese kinship in English and an important theoretical analysis of the central ethnographic concept of "kinship system." Hildred and Clifford Geertz's findings challenge the prevailing anthropological notion of a kinship system as an autonomous set of institutionalized social relationships. Their research in Bali suggests that kinship cannot be studied in isolation but must be perceived as a symbolic subsystem governed by ideas and beliefs unique to each culture.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226285154/?tag=2022091-20
("In four brief chapters," writes Clifford Geertz in his p...)
"In four brief chapters," writes Clifford Geertz in his preface, "I have attempted both to lay out a general framework for the comparative analysis of religion and to apply it to a study of the development of a supposedly single creed, Islam, in two quite contrasting civilizations, the Indonesian and the Moroccan." Mr. Geertz begins his argument by outlining the problem conceptually and providing an overview of the two countries. He then traces the evolution of their classical religious styles which, with disparate settings and unique histories, produced strikingly different spiritual climates. So in Morocco, the Islamic conception of life came to mean activism, moralism, and intense individuality, while in Indonesia the same concept emphasized aestheticism, inwardness, and the radical dissolution of personality. In order to assess the significance of these interesting developments, Mr. Geertz sets forth a series of theoretical observations concerning the social role of religion.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BUFNJFW/?tag=2022091-20
(Will be shipped from US. Used books may not include compa...)
Will be shipped from US. Used books may not include companion materials, may have some shelf wear, may contain highlighting/notes, may not include CDs or access codes. 100% money back guarantee.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VBGHXHK/?tag=2022091-20
( "Suppose," Clifford Geertz suggests, "having entangled...)
"Suppose," Clifford Geertz suggests, "having entangled yourself every now and again over four decades or so in the goings-on in two provincial towns, one a Southeast Asian bend in the road, one a North African outpost and passage point, you wished to say something about how those goings-on had changed." A narrative presents itself, a tour of indices and trends, perhaps a memoir? None, however, will suffice, because in forty years more has changed than those two towns--the anthropologist, for instance, anthropology itself, even the intellectual and moral world in which the discipline exists. And so, in looking back on four decades of anthropology in the field, Geertz has created a work that is characteristically unclassifiable, a personal history that is also a retrospective reflection on developments in the human sciences amid political, social, and cultural changes in the world. An elegant summation of one of the most remarkable careers in anthropology, it is at the same time an eloquent statement of the purposes and possibilities of anthropology's interpretive powers. To view his two towns in time, Pare in Indonesia and Sefrou in Morocco, Geertz adopts various perspectives on anthropological research and analysis during the post-colonial period, the Cold War, and the emergence of the new states of Asia and Africa. Throughout, he clarifies his own position on a broad series of issues at once empirical, methodological, theoretical, and personal. The result is a truly original book, one that displays a particular way of practicing the human sciences and thus a particular--and particularly efficacious--view of what these sciences are, have been, and should become.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674008723/?tag=2022091-20
( This work constitutes the first book-length examination...)
This work constitutes the first book-length examination of Balinese kinship in English and an important theoretical analysis of the central ethnographic concept of "kinship system." Hildred and Clifford Geertz's findings challenge the prevailing anthropological notion of a kinship system as an autonomous set of institutionalized social relationships. Their research in Bali suggests that kinship cannot be studied in isolation but must be perceived as a symbolic subsystem governed by ideas and beliefs unique to each culture.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226285162/?tag=2022091-20
( In The Interpretation of Cultures, the most original an...)
In The Interpretation of Cultures, the most original anthropologist of his generation moved far beyond the traditional confines of his discipline to develop an important new concept of culture. This groundbreaking book, winner of the 1974 Sorokin Award of the American Sociological Association, helped define for an entire generation of anthropologists what their field is ultimately about.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465097197/?tag=2022091-20
born 23 August 1926 San Francisco
Geertz, Clifford James was born on August 23, 1926 in San Francisco, California, United States. Son of Clifford James and Lois (Brieger) Geertz.
AB, Antioch College, 1950. Doctor of Philosophy, Harvard University, 1956. Honorary Doctor of Laws, Harvard University, 1974.
Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Northern Michigan University, 1975. Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), University Chicago, 1979. Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Bates College, 1980.
Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Knox College, 1982. Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Brandeis University, 1984. Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Swarthmore College, 1984.
Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), New School for Social Research, Yale University, 1987. Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Williams College, 1991. Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Princeton University, 1995.
Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Cambridge University, England, 1997. Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Colby College, 2003.
Assistant Professor, of Anthropology", University of California 1958-1960. Assistant Professor, then Professor Department, of Anthropology, University of Chicago 1960-1970. Professor, of Social Science since 1982.
Field work in Java 1952-1954, 1986, Bali 1957-1958, Morocco 1965-1966, 1985-1986.
Fellow North.A.S., American Philosophical Society, American Academy, of Arts and Sciences.
( "In four brief chapters," writes Clifford Geertz in his...)
("In four brief chapters," writes Clifford Geertz in his p...)
( "Suppose," Clifford Geertz suggests, "having entangled...)
( Combining great learning, interpretative originality, a...)
( In essays covering everything from art and common sense...)
( Written with a rare combination of analysis and specula...)
( In The Interpretation of Cultures, the most original an...)
( In a closely observed study of two Indonesian towns, Cl...)
(The illusion that ethnography is a matter of sorting stra...)
( This work constitutes the first book-length examination...)
( This work constitutes the first book-length examination...)
( Clifford Geertz, one of the most influential thinkers o...)
( "A remarkably interesting account of Indonesian agricul...)
(A rare combination of analysis and speculation, this work...)
(Will be shipped from US. Used books may not include compa...)
(Will be shipped from US. Used books may not include compa...)
(Paper edition)
(Cultures)
Served with United States Naval Reserve, 1943-1945. Fellow American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Philosophical Society, American Academy Arts and Sciences, British Academy (correspondent). Member American Anthropological Association, Association for Asian Studies, Middle East Studies Association.
Married Hildred Storey, October 30, 1948 (divorced 1981). Children: Erika, Benjamin. Married Karen Blu, 1987.