Clifford Geertz (1926 - 2006)

Clifford Geertz conducted extensive ethnographical research in Southeast Asia and North Africa. He has also contributed to social and cultural theory and was influential in turning anthropology toward a concern with the frames of meaning within which various peoples live out their lives. He has worked on religion, most particularly Islam, on bazaar trade, on economic development, on traditional political structures, and on village and family life. At the time of his death, Geertz was working on the general question of ethnic diversity and its implications in the modern world.

View Professor Geertz's curriculum vitae

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The National Academy of Sciences has published a brief biography of Clifford Geertz by Richard Shweder, a 2008-09 Member in the School of Social Science, as part of its Biographical Memoirs series. Click here to view the biography as a PDF.