推 Mississippi:跟我想的一樣... 11/02 15:37
New York Times的報導：
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/01/obituaries/01geertz.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Rest in Peace
(看到這則新聞，情不自禁想到人類學界另外位大師李大哥史陀正即將邁入100歲)
※ 引述《cecehaha (嘻嘻哈哈)》之銘言：
: http://www.ias.edu/Newsroom/announcements/Uploads/view.php?cmd=view&id=354
: CLIFFORD GEERTZ 1926-2006
: PRINCETON, N.J., October 31, 2006 -- Clifford Geertz, an eminent scholar in
: the field of cultural anthropology known for his extensive research in
: Indonesia and Morocco, died at the age of 80 early yesterday morning of
: complications following heart surgery at the Hospital of the University of
: Pennsylvania. Dr. Geertz was Professor Emeritus in the School of Social
: Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, where he has served on the
: Faculty since 1970. Dr. Geertz's appointment thirty-six years ago was
: significant not only for the distinguished leadership it would bring to the
: Institute, but also because it marked the initiation of the School of Social
: Science, which in 1973 formally became the fourth School at the Institute.
: Dr. Geertz's landmark contributions to social and cultural theory have been
: influential not only among anthropologists, but also among geographers,
: ecologists, political scientists, humanists, and historians. He worked on
: religion, especially Islam; on bazaar trade; on economic development; on
: traditional political structures; and on village and family life. A prolific
: author since the 1950s, Dr. Geertz's many books include The Religion of Java
: (1960); Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia
: (1968); The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (1973, 2000);
: Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth Century Bali (1980); and The
: Politics of Culture, Asian Identities in a Splintered World (2002). At the
: time of his death, Dr. Geertz was working on the general question of ethnic
: diversity and its implications in the modern world.
: Peter Goddard, Director of the Institute, said, "Clifford Geertz was one of
: the major intellectual figures of the twentieth century whose presence at
: the Institute played a crucial role in its development and in determining
: its present shape. He remained a vital force, contributing to the life of
: the Institute right up to his death. We have all lost a much loved friend."
: "Cliff was the founder of the School of Social Science and its continuing
: inspiration," stated Joan Wallach Scott, Harold F. Linder Professor in the
: School of Social Science at the Institute. "His influence on generations of
: scholars was powerful and lasting. He changed the direction of thinking in
: many fields by pointing to the importance and complexity of culture and the
: need for its interpretation. We will miss his critical intelligence, his
: great sense of irony, and his friendship."
: Dr. Geertz's deeply reflective and eloquent writings often provided profound
: and cogent insights on the scope of culture, the nature of anthropology and
: on the understanding of the social sciences in general. Noting that human
: beings are "symbolizing, conceptualizing, meaning-seeking animals," Geertz
: acknowledged and explored the innate desire of humanity to "make sense out
: of experience, to give it form and order." In Works and Lives: The
: Anthropologist as Author (1988), Geertz stated, "The next necessary
: thing...is neither the construction of a universal Esperanto-like
: culture...nor the invention of some vast technology of human management. It
: is to enlarge the possibility of intelligible discourse between people quite
: different from one another in interest, outlook, wealth, and power, and yet
: contained in a world where tumbled as they are into endless connection, it
: is increasingly difficult to get out of each other's way."
: Dr. Geertz was born in San Francisco, California, on August 23, 1926. After
: serving in the Navy from 1943 through 1945, he studied under the G.I. Bill
: at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where he majored in English. His
: internship as a copyboy for The New York Post dissuaded him from becoming a
: newspaper man. "It was fun but it wasn't practical," he said in an interview
: with Gary A. Olson ("Clifford Geertz on Ethnography and Social
: Construction," 1991), so he switched to philosophy, partly because of the
: influence of philosophy professor George Geiger, "the greatest teacher I
: have known."
: "I never had any undergraduate training in anthropology [Antioch didn't
: offer it at the time] and, indeed, very little social science outside of
: economics," Geertz told Olson. "Finally, one of my professors said, 'Why
: don't you think about anthropology?'"
: After receiving his A.B. in philosophy in 1950, Geertz went on to study
: anthropology at Harvard University and received a Ph.D. from the Department
: of Social Relations in 1956. It was a heady time, according to Geertz.
: "Multi- (or 'inter-' or 'cross-') disciplinary work, team projects, and
: concern with the immediate problems of the contemporary world, were combined
: with boldness, inventiveness, and a sense that things were, finally and
: certainly, on the move."
: Geertz recounted that he was exposed to a form of anthropology "then called,
: rather awkwardly, 'pattern theory' or configurationalism.' In this
: dispensation, stemming from work before and during the war by the
: comparative linguist Edward Sapir at Yale and the cultural holist Ruth
: Benedict at Columbia, it was the interrelation of elements, the gestalt they
: formed, not their particular atomistic character that was taken to be the
: heart of the matter."
: At this point, Geertz became involved in a project spearheaded by cultural
: anthropologist Clyde Kluckhohn, who headed Harvard's Russian Research
: Center. Geertz was one of five anthropologists assigned to the Modjokuto
: Project in Indonesia, sponsored by the Center for International Studies at
: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and it was one of the earliest
: efforts to send a team of anthropologists to study large-scale societies
: with written histories, established governments, and composite cultures.
: In the late 1950s and early 1960s, anthropology was torn apart by questions
: about its colonial past and the possibility of objective knowledge in the
: human sciences. "For the next fifteen years or so," Geertz wrote, "proposals
: for new directions in anthropological theory and method appeared almost by
: the month, the one more clamorous than the next. I contributed to the
: merriment with 'interpretive anthropology,' an extension of my concern with
: the systems of meaning, beliefs, values, world views, forms of feeling,
: styles of thought, in terms of which particular peoples construct their
: existence."
: Dr. Geertz began his academic career as a research assistant (1952-56) and a
: research associate (1957-58) in the Center for International Studies at the
: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and also served as an instructor in
: social relations and as a research associate in Harvard University's
: Laboratory of Social Relations (1956-57). In 1958-59, he was a Fellow at the
: Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford,
: California.
: From 1958 to 1960, he was Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the
: University of California at Berkeley, after which time he was assistant
: professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago (1960-61), and was
: subsequently promoted to associate professor (1962), and then professor
: (1964). He was later named Divisional Professor in the Social Sciences
: (1968-70). At Chicago, Dr. Geertz was a member of the Committee for the
: Comparative Study of New Nations (1962-70), its executive secretary
: (1964-66), and its chairman (1968-70). Geertz was also a Senior Research
: Career Fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health from 1964 to 1970.
: Consultant to the Ford Foundation on Social Sciences in Indonesia in 1971,
: he was Eastman Professor at Oxford University from 1978 to 1979, and held an
: appointment as Visiting Lecturer with Rank of Professor in the Department of
: History at Princeton University from 1975 to 2000.
: In 1970, Geertz joined the permanent faculty of the School of Social Science
: at the Institute, and was named Harold F. Linder Professor of Social Science
: in 1982. He transferred to emeritus status in 2000.
: Dr. Geertz is the author and co-author of important volumes that have been
: translated into over twenty languages and is the recipient of numerous
: honorary degrees and scholarly awards. He received the National Book Critics
: Circle Prize in Criticism in 1988 for Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as
: Author, and was also the recipient of the Fukuoka Asian Cultural Prize
: (1992) and the Bintang Jasa Utama (First Class Merit Star) of the Republic
: of Indonesia (2002). Over the years, he received honorary degrees from
: Harvard, Yale, and Princeton universities, from Antioch, Swarthmore, and
: Williams colleges, and from the University of Cambridge, among other
: institutions.
: He was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Council on
: Foreign Relations, the American Philosophical Society, the National Academy
: of Sciences, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science; a
: corresponding Fellow of the British Academy; and an Honorary Fellow of the
: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. Dr. Geertz was
: a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books.
: Dr. Geertz's fieldwork was concentrated in Java, Bali, Celebes, and Sumatra
: in Indonesia, as well as in Morocco. In May 2000, he was honored at
: "Cultures, Socie'tie's, et Territoires: Hommage a` Clifford Geertz," a
: conference held in Sefrou, Morocco, where he had conducted work for a
: decade. It was particularly gratifying, commented Geertz, because
: "Anthropologists are not always welcomed back to the site of their field
: studies."
: Dr. Geertz is survived by his wife, Dr. Karen Blu, an anthropologist retired
: from the Department of Anthropology at New York University; his children,
: Erika Reading of Princeton, NJ, and Benjamin Geertz of Kirkland, WA; and his
: grandchildren, Andrea and Elena Martinez of Princeton, NJ. He is also
: survived by his former wife, Dr. Hildred Geertz, Professor Emeritus in the
: Department of Anthropology at Princeton University.
: A Memorial will be held at the Institute for Advanced Study. Details will be
: announced at a future date.
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