Clifford Geertz
Culture Custom and Ethics
Key Contemporary Thinkers
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. In
a lively and accessible introduction to his work, Fred Inglis
situates Geertz's thought in the context of his life and times,
reviewing its forty-year range.
The book begins with a chapter-long biography, and places Geertz in
the anthropological tradition from which he broke so decisively.
This break was inspired by the work of Wittgenstein and Kenneth
Burke, who provided Geertz with the lead to construct his theory of
symbolic action. This theory was vigorously at odds with the
dominant idiom of scientistic inquiry in the human sciences, and
since then Geertz has led the practice of these sciences in quite a
different direction.
Geertz's progress is charted in detail by his field work in
Java, Bali and Morocco, as well as his work in the Institute for
Advanced Study in Princeton. His two remarkable collections of
essays, the Interpretation of Cultures and Local Knowledge, are
enthusiastically summarized and criticized. The celebrated and
controversial essay on the Balinese cock fight is defended against
its critics, and in an extended conclusion, his account of the
Balinese Theatre-State is, as Geertz suggests, proposed as a more
adequate method for the combined study of culture and politics than
the professionals' routine application of heavy-handed concepts
such as 'power' and 'status'.
This book provides a comprehensive overview of one of the most
gripping, lucid and entertaining of contemporary thinkers, and in
so doing, makes anthropology once again the popular science. It
will be of great interest to anthropologists and to students and
scholars of cultural studies.
Abbreviations.
1. The Tenor of the Setting: Formation of an Anthropologist.
2. Making Up His Mind.
3. In the Field (1): Java.
4. In the Field (2): Bali and Morocco.
5. Portrait of a Method.
6. the Competition: The anthropology of anthropology.
7. Theatre States and the Stages of the World.
Notes.
A Geertz Bibliography.
Index.
it. He has done admirably. This study of the work of Clifford
Geertz is both comprehensive and entertaining.' Henk Wesseling,
Professor of General History at the University of Leiden and Rector
of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study
'Fred Inglis's biography is useful and charming. It is useful
because it contains so many facts, and because it is perhaps the
most detailed intellectual analysis of Geertz's work now
available.' Times Literary Supplement
'Inglis has done a masterful job reviewing some of the
highlights of Geertz's career and showing how they fit together in
a meaningful trajectory.' Choice
'Clifford Geertz is priviledged; he is the first and only
anthropologist in the prestigious Key Contemporary Thinkers series
... There is probably no better intellectiual biographer to present
Clifford Geertz than Fred Inglis ... For anyone who wants to get
into Geertz's head and have a succinct, lively and entertaining
account of his work, then Inglis is required reading.' Social
Anthropology
''Considerable depth of analysis and insight' Journal
of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and
Ireland
"It will certainly become a standard reference on the
work of this great anthropologist" Paul Shankman, University of
Colorado-Boulder. Anthropological Forum 13(1),
2003
