生平

经Antioch College与哈佛大学，于1956年取得博士学位。之后历任加州大学柏克莱分校、芝加哥大学、普林斯顿高等研究院。

研究

主要成就在于对于摩洛哥、印尼包括爪哇、峇里岛等地的社会文化作了深入的田野调查研究，并以此为基础，对文化、知识的性质提出新的看法。在他最重要的著作之一《文化的诠释》中，他对于文化概念的深入探讨和诠释，包括如深刻写描等概念，其影响超出人类学，而及于社会学、文化史、文化研究等方面。此外在另一部重要著作《地方知识》中，以实例来深入探讨人类学对于个别地区的研究所获得的种种知识，有其如何的意义。

理论背景

1.文化概念

在《文化的诠释》中的首篇文章：《深刻写描》中，他开宗明义的指出他整本书的目的，以及他心目中的人类学研究应是如何。他的目的简单的说是要更加精确的定义“文化”这个概念。就他而言他采取的是一符号学的取向，认为文化是人自己织出并居于其中的“意义之网”（这是引用德国社会学家Max Weber语）。而人类学的工作便是要找出这些“意义之网”究竟是什么。至于人类学家是怎么做到这一点，他引用英国哲学家吉尔伯特‧赖尔（Gilbert Ryle）著名的短语：“深刻写描”（thick description）。想像一个男孩正为了向他的同伴暗示些什么，而不停的挤眉弄眼；另一个男孩走进来，看到这一幕，便开始模仿起来，甚至还带有点玩笑意味。我们怎么知道这两个动作事实上是不一样的动作？ 对他而言，如果我们是紧紧遵守行为主义的教条，换言之仅观察行为本身，我们可能没有办法区辨这两个动作哪里不同。毕竟，他们都不过是眨眼的动作罢了。但关键就在这里，我们之所以能够知道这两个动作不一样，就在于我们掌握了这两个男孩-行动者-的意图（intention;或另一个Geertz喜欢的短语：what they are up to）。其中一个正运用了“挤眉弄眼”这一有特定意义结构支撑的行动在传递某些想法、意图；而另一个仅仅是单纯的模仿。

著作

"Religion as a Cultural System". In Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion. Ed. Michael Banton. pp. 1–46. ASA Monographs, 3. London: Tavistock Publications. 1966

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 Theatre 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

"Anti-Anti-Relativism" (1984), American Anthropologist, vol. 86, no. 2, pp. 263–278.

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

"An inconstant profession: The anthropological life in interesting times" (2002), Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 31, pp. 1–19Viewable at hypergeertz.jku.at

著作编年

1957 Ritual and Social Change: A Javanese Example. American Anthropologist 59(1):32-54.

1959 Form and Variation in Balinese Village Structure. American Anthropologist 61:991-1012.

1959 The Javanese Village. In Local, Ethnic, and National Loyalties in Village Indonesia. Ed. G. William Skinner. pp. 34–41. New Haven: Southeast Asian Program, Yale University.

1960 Religion of Java. Glencoe: Free Press.

1961 The Rotating Credit Association: A "Middle Rung" in Development. Economic Development and Cultural Change 10:241-263.

1962 Studies in Peasant Life: Community and Society. In Biennial Review of Anthropology 1961. Ed. Bernard J. Siegal. pp. 1–41. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

1962 The Growth of Culture and the Evolution of Mind. In Theories of the Mind. Ed. J. Scher. pp. 713–740. New York: Free Press.

1963 Agricultural Involution: The Process of Agricultural Change in Indonesia. Berkeley: University of California Press.

1963 Peddlers and Princes: Social Change and Economic Modernization in Two Indonesian Towns. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

1963 (editor) Old Societies and New States. New York: Free Press.

1963 The Integrative Revolution: Primordial Sentiments and Civil Politics in the New States. In Old Societies and New States. Ed. Clifford Geertz. pp. 105–157. Glencoe: Free Press.

1964 Ideology as a Cultural System. In Ideology and Discontent. Ed. David Apter. pp. 47–76. New York: Free Press.

1965 The Social History of an Indonesian Town. Cambridge: MIT Press.

1965 Modernization in a Muslim Society: The Indonesian Case, 201-211, in Robert O. Tilman (ed), Man, State, and Society in Contemporary South East Asia. London: Pall Mall.

1966 Person, Time, and Conduct in Bali: An Essay in Cultural Analysis. Southeast Asia Program, Cultural Report Series. New Haven: Yale University.

1966 Religion as a Cultural System. In Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion. Ed. Michael Banton. pp. 1–46. ASA Monographs, 3. London: Tavistock Publications.

1966 The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man. In New Views of the Nature of Man. Ed. J. Platt. pp. 93–118. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

1967 Politics Past, Politics Preset: Some Notes on the Contribution of Anthropology to the Study of the New States. European Journal of Sociology 8(1):1-14.

1967 The Cerebral Savage: On the Work of Claude Levi-Strauss. Encounter 48(4):25-32.

1967 Tihingan: A Balinese Village. In Villages in Indonesia. Ed. R. N. Koentjaraningrat. pp. 210–243. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.

1967 Under the Mosquito Net. New York Review of Books, September 14.

1968 Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 136 pp.

1968 Thinking as a Moral Act: Dimensions of Anthropological Fieldwork in the New States. Antioch Review 28(2):139-158.

1972 Religious Change and Social Order in Soeharto"s Indonesia. Asia 27:62-84.

1972 The Wet and the Dry: Traditional Irrigation in Bali and Morocco. Human Ecology 1:34-39.

1972 Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight. Daedalus 101(1 Winter).

1973 The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic.

1973 Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture. In The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. Clifford Geertz. pp 3–30. New York: Basic Books.

1976 From the Native"s Point of View. In Meaning in Anthropology. Eds. Keith H. Basso and Henry A. Selby. pp. 221–237. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

1977 Found in Translation: On the Social History of the Moral Imagination. Georgia Review 31(4 Winter):788-810.

1977 Curing, Sorcery, and Magic in a Javanese Town. In Culture, Disease, and Healing: Studies in Medical Anthropology. Ed. David Landy. pp. 146–153. New York: Macmillan Publishing.

1979 [with Hildred Geertz and Lawrence Rosen] Meaning and Order in Moroccan Society: Three Essays in Cultural Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. See his own contribution on "Suq: The Bazaar Economy in Sefrou" (pp. 123–225).

1980 Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

1983 Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology. New York: Basic Books.

1983 Centers, Kings, and Charisma: Reflections on the Symbolics of Power. In Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology. Clifford Geertz. pp. 121–146. New York: Basic Books.

1983 "From the Native"s Point of View": On the Nature of Anthropological Knowledge. In Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology. Clifford Geertz. pp. 55–70. New York: Basic Books.

1983 Notions of Primitive Thought: Dialogue with Clifford Geertz. In States of Mind. ed & comp Jonathan Miller. pp. 192–210. New York: Pantheon.

1984 Anti-Anti-Relativism. 1983 Distinguished Lecture. American Anthropologist 82:263-278.

1984 Culture and Social Change: The Indonesian Case. Man 19:511-532.

1986 The Uses of Diversity. In Tanner Lectures on Human Values, Vol. 7. Ed. Sterling M. McMurrin. pp. 251–275. Cambridge and Salt Lake City: Cambridge University Press and University of Utah Press.

1988 Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

The four studies included in the book are:

1989 Margaret Mead, 1901-1978. Biographical Memoirs 58:329-341. National Academy of Sciences.

1990 History and Anthropology. New Literary History 21(2 Winter):321-335.

1991 The Year of Living Culturally. New Republic, October 21, 30-36.

1992 "Local Knowledge" and Its Limits: Some Obiter Dicta. Yale Journal of Criticism 5(2):129-135.

1993 "Ethnic Conflict": Three Alternative Terms. Common Knowledge 2(3 Winter):54-65.

1994 Life on the Edge. [Review of Tsing, In the Realm of the Diamond Queen]. New York Review of Books 41(7 April ):3-4.

1995 After the Fact: Two Countries, Four Decades, One Anthropologist. [The Jerusalem-Harvard Lectures]. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press.

1995 Culture War. [Review essay on Sahlins, How "Natives" Think and Obeyesekere, The Apotheosis of Captain Cook]. New York Review of Books 42(19 November 30):4-6.

2000 Available Light: Anthropological Reflections on Philosophical Topics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

2010 Life Among the Anthros and Other Essays edited by Fred Inglis (Princeton University Press; 272 pages)

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