Anthropology in general has always been fairly hospitable to female scholars, and even to feminist scholars.
Clifford Geertz

Anthropology never has had a distinct subject matter, and because it doesn't have a real method, there's a great deal of anxiety over what it is.
Clifford Geertz

Gender consciousness has become involved in almost every intellectual field: history, literature, science, anthropology. There's been an extraordinary advance.
Clifford Geertz

Has feminism made us all more conscious? I think it has. Feminist critiques of anthropological masculine bias have been quite important, and they have increased my sensitivity to that kind of issue.
Clifford Geertz

I agree with Chomsky in almost nothing. When it comes to innate structures and so on, I'm very skeptical.
Clifford Geertz

I do think the attempt to raise consciousness has succeeded. People are very aware of gender concerns now.
Clifford Geertz

I don't feel that an atmosphere of debate and total disagreement and argument is such a bad thing. It makes for a vital and alive field.
Clifford Geertz

I don't have the notion that everybody has to write in some single academic style.
Clifford Geertz

I don't think things are moving toward an omega point; I think they're moving toward more diversity.
Clifford Geertz

I don't write drafts. I write from the beginning to the end, and when it's finished, it's done.
Clifford Geertz


I had a hard time convincing students that they were going to North Africa to understand the North Africans, not to understand themselves.
Clifford Geertz

I never leave a sentence or a paragraph until I'm satisfied with it.
Clifford Geertz

I think feminism has had a major impact on anthropology.
Clifford Geertz

I think of myself as a writer who happens to be doing his writing as an anthropologist.
Clifford Geertz

I think the American university system still seems to be the best system in the world.
Clifford Geertz

I think the perception of there being a deep gulf between science and the humanities is false.
Clifford Geertz

I think what's known about neurology is still scattered and uncertain.
Clifford Geertz

I was trained in the '50s as a New Critic. I remember what literature was like before the New Critics, when people stood up and talked about Shelley's soul and such things.
Clifford Geertz

I'm an inveterate fox and not a hedgehog, so I always think you should try everything.
Clifford Geertz

I'm writing a review of three books on feminism and science, and it's about social constructionism. So I would say I'm a social constructionist, whatever that means.
Clifford Geertz