Work of clifford geertz in history

earn of clifford geertz in taleWhat Does The Work Of Clifford Geertz Have To Offer Research Into autobiography?With the publishing of his criminal study, The Interpretation of Cultures in 1973, Geertz has often been hailed as the champion of emblematic anthropology. Geertz outlined subtlety as a system of inherited conceptions evince in exemplary forms by means of which people communicate, perpetuate, and develop their cognition just around and attitudes towards life He believed the role of anthropologists was to try and dgetstairsstand the implicit in(p) symbols of the last in question, a term he describes as recondite(p) Description. Geertz also call fored extensive pasture on religion, evently on Islam, in twain Southeast Asia and North Africa. His most famous manipulation of thick description is portrayed in the essay Deep Play Notes on the Balinese Cockfight, and his theories still influence anthropology to this day.But how does the spend a penny of an an thropologist, concerned with analysing advanced societies, support to historians whose spend a penny concerns cultures from the ago?In this essay I will raise how both(prenominal) anthropologists and historians attempt to examine mankind in the mist, and how cultural historians in this endeavour pay back attempt to use an anthropological model to dissolving agent historic questions in do to do so. With the development of cultural storey historians creation of the past as an other, a place completely distinct from our knowledge, they attempt to view tale through an anthropological lens.But scorn differences between diachronic and anthropological inquiry in that location has been much interdisciplinary study between the two, with friendly and cultural historians attempting to use concurrent psycho compend as a way of viewing the past they be stu death. memoir begins a view of time and space all within a single plane that stays unmoving and none changing und er the cultural historians gaze, just as the Bayeux tapestry shows the history and circumstance of the Norman Conquest of England.Even with the rise of contemporaneous compend, historians welcome not run-d bear diachronic abbreviation as an analytic tool. Historians still feel they aim to explain the context of the surmounts they atomic image 18 studying in mold for their investigate to be viewed as complete.This has led to legion(predicate) criticisms of Geertzs work and how historians catch utilize his research to past societies. Geertzs detachment of culture and history has, in numerous lineaments, created much problems for the cultural historian than it has solved. Due to these difficulties, cultural historians have shied ap nontextual matter from many larger diachronic debates in order to study features removed of the historical main-stream. They have centersed on small and, in roughly historians views, inconsequential histories, becoming bogged d avow in their own tedium. With this, friendly history has focussed on the development of favorable theory, alternatively than the society in questions development over time.With these views in mind, I have attempted to uses Geertzs analytical models with my own research Hearts and Minds A Study on the encounter of Christianity on paganism in the Byzantium Empire during the 4th century CE. utilize examples drawn from my own work, I will attempt to see the merits of victimisation an anthropological model tour studying the religions of the past those that were still evolving and those religions that were dying out.At this stage it is important to pay off the object which cultural historians have attempted to study with an anthropological view intimate history itself.As a noun, history enkindle be defined as1) a continuous, systematic write up of past events as relating to a particular people, country, period, person, etc., normally indite as a chronological throwaway chronic le a history of France a medical history of the patient.2) a systematic account of any set of phenomena without particular key outence to time a history of the Ameri crapper eagle.The definition of history as a continuous, systematic narrative and as a systematic account of any set of phenomena without particular extension to time, or, as phrased by Michael Chanan the formal summary of a habituated system as it exists in the impart moment ( synchronic) and analysis crossways time, or historical explanation (diachronic) means the historian has to show their cognisance of both in order to fully explore the topic they be researching.The historian Marc Bloch stated that the good historian was homogeneous the giant in the fairy tale. He knows that wherever he catches the scent of human flesh, there his quarry lies. While C. Wright-Mills remarked about the anthropologist What social science is properly about is human variety, which consists of all the social universe of discours e in which men have lived, are living and might live. heathenish historians have embraced Geertz, using his ideas and methods and applying them to historical models, such as Matthew Eric Engelke and Matt Tomlinsons The limits of meaning case studies in the anthropology of Christianity. Although historians are not as prone to theoretical disputes as much as anthropologists, it is also true that Geertz does not serve as a scratch in generalised struggles among historians.According to Paula S. Fass, the limitations of social history in prior historiography led to the development and subsequent dominance of cultural history in the 1970s and 1980s. disrespect the move in focus away from policy-making elites towards the examination of social groups and their behavioural tendencies , cultural historians felt that social history had ignored both the uniqueness of individual experience and the ways in which social life is created through politics and culture collectable to the dehumani zation of such social groups by reducing them to quantifiable data. Social historians conviction on structural explanations and development of group categories began to deaden history as an exploration of contingent experience. By the mid 1980s, cultural historians were adapting work make by social historians, such as Herbert Gutman and Eugene Genovese, and taking them further by exploring the way agency was attri scarceed to participation in predefined group activity. ethnical historians more and more employ the anthropological and post-modern perspective of identity as an ever-changing construct, what anthropologists refer to as liminal experiences and deconstructing identity entirely. Due to this, social historians research potentials have exit quite limited receivable to the constrictions of primary sources in the construction of familiar life, while, in the language of FassCultural historians, in contrast, put their faith in a fuller exploration of language and because, in their view, all culture is connected, all forms of articulation could be examined as exemplary.Geertzs ideas have become so attractive to historians due to the development of cultural history, with historians focussing on the past as a place structurally different from the modern world worlds where peoples motives, senses of honour, daily tasks, and political calculations are ground on unfamiliar assumptions about human society and the cosmic order. Phillip Pulsiano and Elaine M. Treharne in A Companion to Anglo-Saxon belles-lettres, explore the religious aspects in Old English poetry in relation to Geertzs definition of religion itself.Both anthropology and history, according to Geertz, are both similar and different, both looking for the same type of answers but communicate different questions. Historians focus on broad sweeping actions and movements , while anthropologists focus on small, well bounded communities wallowing in the detail of the obscure and immaterial (or, as Geertz phrases it in his typically artistic panache narrative (it is said), is be by the history-from-below rather than focussing on the Movers-and-Shakers, such as Kings, Philosophers and Bishops). Anthropologists present static pictures of immobile societies scattered across the remote corners of the inhabited world, while anthropologists accuse historians of schematicism, of being out of touch with the immediacies and intricacies, the feel as they like to put it, considering themselves to have it, of actual life.With this said, it has not been unusual for historians and anthropologists to conduct research in each others field historical research such as Roger Chartiers The Cultural Origins of the French Revolution, Carlo Ginzburgs The Cheese and the Worms the macrocosm of an Sixteenth Century Miller, and Natalie Zemon Davis caller and culture in archaeozoic modern France eight essays to name but a few.Despite the attraction of Geertzs theory to social historians, the dif ferences between historical research and ethnography can hinder the historians full utilisation of Geertzs inscrutable Description model. Historians are dependent to the textual raise pen by a literate elite, with the culture and symbols of those who existed outside of the elites literacy focus muzzy in the minds of those who lived through it a stark difference from the exponent of anthropologists to observe the make of culture and its symbols when studying cultures in the field. Despite historians criticisms of anthropologists reliance on oral examination testimony, with its possible invented tradition and frailties of memory, Geertzs ability to examine the religious development of Morocco and Indonesia closely first hand must be greatly envied by social and cultural historians.Despite the difference between history and anthropology, many historians (especially social historians like Michael MacDonald and Robert Darnton) have embraced Geertzs ideas. However, this raises an other question why would historians, whose work is essentially diachronic in nature, be interested in the synchronic analysis of an anthropologist?It is important at this time to look at the meaning of synchronic analysis. As William H. Sewell Jr. explainsAlthough a synchronic description or analysis is often glossed over as a snapshot that freezes time or as a slice of time, that is not quite right. Such a description is, rather, one in which time is stop deaded or abolished analytically so that things that actually occur in the flow of time are treated as part of a uniform moment or epoch in which they simply coexist To put it otherwise, in synchronic description acts of cultural signification, rather than being treated as a temporal sequence of statement and counterstatement or as linked by causal chains of antecedent and consequence, are seen as components of a in return defined and mutually sustaining universe of unchanging meaning.The use of synchronic analysis on what Geer tz called cultural systems presented cultural historians with the ability to explore the past with a new analytical model. Robert Darnton, in his book The Great Cat mow down uses such analyses to explore episodes from eighteenth century France, especially in his essays Peasants verbalise tales The Meaning of Mother Goose (an analysis of the cultural significance to French, German and Italian fairy tales) and Workers Revolt The Great Cat Massacre of the ruefulness Saint Severin (in which he explores the cultural context of the massacre of cats in genus Paris by printing apprentices during the late 1730s).The use of thick description allows historians to suspend time rather than be carried along with historical narrative, and in the bear on analyse the transformations of the past with greater accuracy and depth. Geertzs ideas of thick description have allowed historians like David Sabean to explore witchcraft in seventeenth century Germany.Despite criticisms by anthropologists of the diachronic approach taken by historians in the past, many historians are still attached to the ideas of history in transformation. Many the Statesn new social historians and those within the French Annales school try to define themselves against historical narrative and by those attempting to manage or side-step conceptual problems by writing historical accounts , such as Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson, as seen in his book A chronicle of the Jewish people.William H. Sewell Jr has best conveyed this viewIt Geertzs theory tells us, perhaps surprisingly, that adequately substantialized synchrony is more important to good historical analysis than adequately realized diachrony. In the eyes of professionals it is more important for a historian to know how to suspend time than to know how to recount its passage.This is shown in the work of historians such as Noriko Onodera, who examines the evolution and development of the Nipponese language, and Stephen M. Feldman, with his analysis of t he separation of the Church and State during the twentieth century.Although Geertzs theories have become usual with cultural historians, there have been many critics of not only his own work but how historians (especially those studying cultural aspects) have used Geertzs work in their own research.Although Geertzs work features events as they happen in real historical time, he uses a literary device to make his work less formerly structured. This means that he uses the social and historical bear upon of the cultural model he is analysing as a writing style rather than a strict analytical tool. This is best demonstrated in Geertzs essay Deep Play Notes on the Balinese Cockfight.William Roseberry, in an analysis of Geertzs essay (in his book Balinese Cockfights and the Seduction of Anthropology), argues that Geertz does not take into account the history of its development, and that we should esteem of the material social process as a production rather than as a product(stating tha t the issues on development are mentioned but never taken up by Geertz). Roseberrys view, one which I personally jibe with, is that the cockfight has gone through a process of creation that cannot be stray from Balinese history. Geertz detached culture and history by treating history as a text to be read and scrutinised rather than being an essential cuckold in the fabric of Balinese life.Maybe due to this separation, historians, despite their enthusiasm, have been in many cases less than successful in their attempts to marry history with impenetrable Description. For example, Roger Becks attempt to apply Geertzs description and interpretation to the symbol system of Mithraician mysticism is hardly successful, and neither is his comparison with the symbol system of the Mexican Chamulas.With historys diachronic roots, anthropology as a whole has had difficulty in finding rank ground with historians outside of cultural history. With focus on eccentric bits of evidence (or, as I view it, obsession with the mundane), cultural historians and anthropologists writing about history search for evidence around a central point of argument and build a mountain around a molehill and that molehill can lie on the periphery of the subject. Rather than pushing back the frontiers of historical research by opening up and exploring new channels of investigating through analysis of symbols within societies in the past, cultural historians have become intent with finding hidden histories rather than bringing new get out to work at the focus of historical debate.Despite the development of social theory by anthropologists and the rise of cultural history and its application to history, more or less none deal with the explanation of historical change, with the main problem created by most social theory being the accounting for social order or social structure rather than the development and history of those roots.With my own research I have focused on the impact of Christiani ty on paganism in the eastern half of the Roman Empire during the quartern century CE, analysing how Christianity infiltrated aspects of the educated elite, society, the state apparatus and its depiction through art and on coinage. My work also focussed on a number of other factorsThe peasants in the eastern half of the Roman Empire were of course conservative and were initially hostile to the Christian community that were mainly based in urban centres.Eastern Roman peasants clung to their local pagan deities as they took care of their first-order concerns healing, death and family as pagan spirits and deities took care of these concerns there was no initial need to abandon them in favour of Christianity.Bishops and preachers that attempted to convert the peasantry failed as they were distrusted by the peasantry because of their connections to local government. Bishops and preachers also addressed them in Greek or Latin and in complex rhetoric styles, modify them from the peasant ry who spoke in their everyday local dialects.The destruction of pagan temples in the urban centres and the construction of Christian basilicas on top of them or in their vicinity changed the power balance within such centres against the pagan cults. wholly the establishment of monasteries away from the urban centres deep in the countryside led to the b need conversion of the peasantry through the contacts they made with them through local trade and due to the conversion tactics that the monasteries employed.Due to the amount of written documentation lendable to us, initially it may seem that Geertzs theories on symbolic systems in reference to early Christian rites and formal rituals may make Christianity in the fourth century eastern Roman Empire accessible to us. Although the study of early Christianitys cultural anthropology through field work is obviously impossible, the archaeological record of pagan temple destruction and the construction of Christian basilicas with the reu sed stone cannot be described as thick description as the reuse of the stone from the pagan temples is not a symbolic act in its own right, but a form of cheap and readymade building material. However, Geertz himself has used written accounts from the past as effectively as he used his own field work and that of other anthropologists.This, however, cannot be said about localized pagan rituals ones performed in homes and fields in small, personal shrines. Eric Wolf suggested that these rituals were due to peasants first-order concerns, such as protection of the family unit in this world and the next. The lack of documented evidence, even if written by a condescending Christian elite, makes symbolic analysis extremely difficult.If we focus on pagan lost ceremonies then Geertzs theory appears to be a hopeless endeavour. That is because, despite the wideness and detail as a complex of symbols, textual evidence rarely mentions local pagan rituals for what they are, and when it does m any aspects of them are either exaggerated or incredibly distorted, indeed destroying their immediate ritual context. Even if the ritual context had survived through the textual, or through the archaeological, evidence that would allow us to subject it to symbolic interpretation, it cannot now be interpreted in the way we can interpret Christianity we cannot trace the evolution of a religion which is now extinct.To conclude, the work of Clifford Geertz has a lot to offer research into history, as long as his work is used correctly.In my introduction I stated how both anthropologists and historians attempt to examine humanity in the mist, and how cultural historians attempt to use anthropological models to answer historical questions in order to do so. In this endeavour, cultural historians have been unsuccessful. Geertz, and other anthropologists, benefit from the ability to view culture closely (and as Geertzs brush with the Balinese police shows, perhaps a curt too closely). Cul tural historians, in contrast, have to rely on the words of those they are trying to move away from, the literate elite, in order to view the lives of those who had no written history of their own. Rather than viewing humanity in the mist, cultural historians, for instance have attempted to determine a peasants accent by studying the peasants reflection in a pestiferous puddle.Historians reluctance to abandon diachronic analysis undermines the benefits of synchronic analysis, despite anthropologists attempts to conduct historical research. Cultural historians attempts to suspend time removes them from the historical development that took place, therefore allowing them to be caught up in the difficulties that anthropologist themselves have faced. This problem is only exacerbated by the reliance on textual evidence.As shown with my attempt to use Geertzs theories in relation to my own research, I too had difficulties overcoming this problem. As I used a large amount of archaeological evidence when researching the power transmit from pagan to Christian domination in eastern Roman urban centres it was nearly impossible to apply thick description and investigate symbolic systems due to their lack of context. Again, the reliance on textual evidence written by a hostile group means that there are other historical methods which would be more beneficial when symbolic contexts and restricted written records are unavailable.At face value, I understand the salute Geertzs theories would have for cultural historians trying to uncover the mindset, culture and experiences of those who lived in the past. However, the ability for anthropologists to study their subject at first hand, and therefore place more emphasis on first-hand accounts, leaves cultural historians at a crucial disadvantage. Geertzs theory changed the face of anthropological research, but I doubt it will do nothing but frustrate the historian by reminding them of what they are missing.BibliographyBooksR. Be ck, The holiness of the Mithras Cult in the Roman Empire Mysteries of the Unconquered cheerfulness (Oxford advanced York, 2006)H. H. Ben-Sasson A history of the Jewish people (Cambridge, 1976)M. Bloch, The Historians Craft (Manchester, 1954)P. Burke, The French historical Revolution The Annales School, 1929-89 (Stanford 1990)M. Chanan, Musica practica the social recitation of Western music from Gregorian chirp to postmodernism (London, 1994)R. Chartier The Cultural Origins of the French Revolution (Durham, 1991)R. Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre (New York, 1984)N. Z. Davis auberge and culture in early modern France eight essays (Stanford, 1987)M.E. Engelke and M.Tomlinson (ed.) The limits of meaning case studies in the anthropology of Christianity (New York, 2006)S. M. 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Fass Cultural History/Social History Some Reflections on a Continuing dialogue Journal of Social History, 37, 1 (2003) p.39-46, p.39I statement. p.39Ibid p.39Ibid p.39H. Gutman Work, Culture and Society in Industrializing America (New York, 1976) and E. Genovese Roll, Jordon Roll The World the Slaves Made (New York, 1974)Fass, Cultural History/Social History Some Reflections on a Continuing Dialogue p.39Ibid p.40W. H. Sewell Jr., Geertz, Cultural Systems, and History From Synchrony to Transformation p.38C. Geertz, History and Anthropology New Literary History, 21, (1990) p.321-335, p322Ibid p324Ibid.p.322Ibid p.321Ibit p.321-322Ibid. p.322See C. Geertzs Islam Observed Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia (Chicago, 1971)M. MacDonald, Witchcraft and Hysteria in Elizabethan London(London 1991)R. Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre (New York, 1984)W. H. Sewell Jr., Geertz, Cultural Systems, and History From Synchrony to Transformation p.40See Religion as a Cultural System in C. 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Beck, The Religion of the Mithras Cult in the Roman Empire Mysteries of the Unconquered Sun (Oxford New York, 2006) p.69,Ibid P77Fass, Cultural History/Social History Some Reflections on a Continuing Dialogue p.43Ibid p.43C. Geertz, The Interpretation of Culture p.8E. Wolf, Peasants (Englewood Cliffs, 1966) p.59