Anthropologists as symbols: Geertz

Abstract

Clifford Geertz (1926-2006) was certainly one of the most influential anthropologists in the last decades of the 20th century, even though some of his former students (like Rabinow in Slyomovics 2010) claim that he was not very accessible as a person, and that sometimes he did not even care for his students. Somewhat paradoxically, Geertz´s influence on anthropology and related disciplines remained notable even after his death. This paper analyzes interest in aspects of his work over the last decade, as an indicator of transforming a personality into a global cultural symbol.