Clifford Geertz

In the cognitive revolution, psychologists, recognizing that developments in information processing had potential for studying the human mind, sought for the first time to apply new ideas in early artificial intelligence, computer science, and neuroscience to psychology. The Institute, as the home of one of the first modern computers, was uniquely poised to serve as a hub for this nascent field of study.

Philosophers have always been interested in moral questions, but social scientists have generally been more reluctant to discuss morals and moralities. This is indeed a paradox since the questioning of the moral dimension of human life and social...

I was at the Institute for the academic year 1971–72 as Research Assistant to Clifford Geertz. This was prior to the establishment of the School of Social Science in 1973, so the number of social scientists was only a handful, including myself, the...

Albert O. Hirschman became a permanent Faculty member of the Institute in 1974, moving from Harvard’s economics department to join Clifford Geertz in the creation of the School of Social Science. By then, Hirschman was not just famous for his...

Born on October 6, 1936, in British Columbia, Robert Langlands grew up in a small town where his father owned a building supply store. “When I was a child I liked to add and subtract,” says Langlands. “In our store, my mother worked. And I remember...

Clifford Geertz, an eminent scholar in the field of cultural anthropology known for his extensive research in Indonesia and Morocco, died on October 30, 2006, at the age of 80. Geertz was Professor Emeritus in the School of Social Science at the...

We are, in this country right now, engaged in the process of constructing, rather hurriedly, as though we had better quickly get on with it after years of neglect, a standard, public-square image of “Islam.” Until very recently, we had hardly more...

In the 1999–2000 academic year, Robert Langlands, Professor Emeritus in the School of Mathematics, presented a series of Institute talks, “The Practice of Mathematics,” aimed at explaining several central mathematical problems to a general audience...