Clifford Geertz

Clifford Geertz, an eminent scholar in the field of cultural anthropology, was the first and founding professor in the School of Social Science. He served on the faculty from 1970 to 2006.

Geertz’s work defined the field of interpretive social science, and he is regarded as one of the most influential and widely cited American cultural anthropologists of the second half of the twentieth century. Under his intellectual leadership, interpretive social science was developed and disseminated at the Institute’s School of Social Science.