American cultural anthropologist, a leading rhetorician and proponent of symbolic anthropology and interpretive anthropology.

After service in the U.S. Navy in World War II (1943–45), Geertz studied at Antioch College, Ohio (B.A., 1950), and Harvard University (Ph.D., 1956). He taught or held fellowships at a number of schools before joining the anthropology staff of the University of Chicago (1960–70). In 1970 he became professor of social science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., where he retired as professor emeritus in 2000.

At Chicago, Geertz became a champion of symbolic (symbol) anthropology, which gives prime attention to the role of thought—of “symbols”—in society. Symbols guide action. Culture, according to Geertz, is “a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life.” The function of culture is to impose meaning on the world and make it understandable. The role of anthropologists is to try—though complete success is not possible—to interpret the guiding symbols of each culture.

Geertz's writings tend to be rhetorical and idiosyncratic, more given to metaphors and examples than simple exposition. Among his major works are The Religion of Java (1960), Person, Time, and Conduct in Bali (1966), The Interpretation of Cultures (1973), Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology (1983), and Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author (1988).