This is an outdated version published on 2024-06-20. Read the most recent version.

Beyond the “Dangers of Geertzism.” Giovanni Levi in Conversation with Giovanni Zampieri

Authors

  • Giovanni Zampieri Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology, University of Padua https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8848-0808
  • Giovanni Levi Department of Humanities, Ca' Foscari University of Venice

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/19223

Keywords:

Microhistory, historical sociology, Geertzism, interdisciplinarity

Abstract

In this interview with Giovanni Zampieri, historian Giovanni Levi reflects on his intellectual career, focusing particularly on the relationship between history, sociology, and interpretive anthropology as practiced by Clifford Geertz. In the interview, Levi elaborates on debates at the intersection of these disciplines concerning comparison and generalization and the relationship between knowledge and language. These themes open new avenues for reflection at the porous borders of history and the social sciences, in continuity with the insights offered by the other contributors to “The Interpretation of Cultures at Fifty”.

References

Adams, J., Clemens, E.S., & Orloff, A.S. (2005). Introduction: Social Theory, Modernity, and the Three Waves of Historical Sociology. In J. Adams, E.S. Clemens, & A.S. Orloff (Eds.), Remaking Modernity. Politics, History, and Sociology (pp. 1–74). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Arrighi, G. (1994). The Long Twentieth Century. Money, Power and the Origins of Our Times. New York, NY: Verso.

Barbu, D. (2018). An Interview with Sanjay Subrahmanyam. Cromohs, 21, 123–132. https://doi.org/10.13128/Cromohs-24552

Barth, F. (1981). Process and Form in Social Life, Selected Essays of Fredrik Barth. London: Routledge.

Benso, S., & Schroeder, B. (2007). Contemporary Italian Philosophy: Crossing the Borders of Ethics, Politics, and Religion. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Carlotti, A.L. (1989). Gli storici italiani e la sociologia: un bilancio. Studi di sociologia, 27(2), 158–197.

Clark, E.A. (2004). History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Cossu, A., & Bortolini, M. (2017). Italian Sociology, 1945–2010: An Intellectual and Institutional Profile. Cham: Springer.

Darnton, R. (1984). The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Faucci, R. (2014). A History of Italian Economic Thought. New York, NY: Routledge.

Geertz, C. (1973). Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture. In The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (pp. 3–30). New York, NY: Basic Books.

Geertz, C. (1984). Distinguished Lecture: Anti Anti-relativism. American Anthropologist, 86(2), 263–278. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1984.86.2.02a00030

Geertz, C. (2008). Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Ginzburg, C. (1976). Il formaggio e i vermi. Il cosmo di un mugnaio del Cinquecento. Torino: Einaudi.

Ginzburg, C. (1983). The Night Battles. Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Ginzburg, C. (1993). Microhistory: Two or Three Things That I Know About It. Critical Inquiry, 20(1), 10–35. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004274709_012

Ginzburg, C. (2023). Miti, emblemi, spie: morfologia e storia. Milano: Adelphi. (Original work published 1986)

Gribaudi, M. (1987). Mondo operaio e mito operaio: spazi e percorsi sociali a Torino nel primo Novecento. Torino: Einaudi.

Gribaudi, M., Levi, G., & Tilly, C. (1998). Mikrogeschichte, Makrogeschichte: Komplementär oder Inkommensurabel? Göttingen: Wallstein.

Guidali, F. (2021). Intellectuals at the Factory Gates: Early Italian Operaismo from Raniero Panzieri to Mario Tronti. Labor History, 62(4), 454–469. https://doi.org/10.1080/0023656X.2021.1955095

Institute for Advanced Studies. (1984). The Institute for Advanced Study. Annual Report 1983/84. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Kracauer, S. (1969). History. The Last Things Before the Last. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

La Malfa, S. (2016). La collana Einaudi Microstorie (1981–1991). Storiografia, XX, 197–214. https://doi.org/10.19272/201606601014

Levi, G. (1985a). L’eredità immateriale: carriera di un esorcista. Torino: Einaudi

Levi, G. (1985b). I pericoli del Geertzismo. Quaderni storici, 58(1), 269–277.

Levi, G. (1990). Il piccolo, il grande e il piccolo. Meridiana, 10(2), 211–234.

Levi, G. (2018). La storia. Scienza delle domande generali e delle risposte locali. Psiche, 2, 361–378. https://doi.org/10.7388/91492

Padberg, B. (2020). The Global Diversity of Institutes for Advanced Study. Sociologica, 14(1), 119–161. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/9839

Puzzo, D.A. (1959). Gaetano Salvemini: An Historiographical Essay. Journal of the History of Ideas, 20(2), 217–235. https://doi.org/10.2307/2707820

Revel, J., & S. Loriga (2022). Une Histoire Inquiète: Les historiens et le Tournant Linguistique. Paris: Seuil.

Roggero, G. (2023). Italian Operaismo: Genealogy, History, Method (C. Pope, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. (Original work published 2019)

Salvemini, G. (1951). Economic Conditions in Italy, 1919–1922. The Journal of Modern History, 23(1), 29–37. https://doi.org/10.1086/237385

Subrahmanyam, S. (2022). Connected History: Essays and Arguments. London: Verso.

Trivellato, F. (2011). Is There a Future for Italian Microhistory in the Age of Global History? California Italian Studies, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.5070/C321009025

Woolf, S. (2011). Italian Historical Writing. In A. Schneider & D. Woolf (Eds.). The Oxford History of Historical Writing (pp. 333–352). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Zemon Davis, N. (1984). Il ritorno di Martin Guerre. Un caso di doppia identità nella Francia del Cinquecento (S. Lombardini, Trans.). Torino: Einaudi. (Original work published 1982)

Zemon Davis, N. (2008). A Reminiscence. Remembering Clifford Geertz. History Workshop Journal, 65, 188–194. https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/dbn001

Downloads

Published

2024-06-20

Versions

How to Cite

Zampieri, G., & Levi, G. (2024). Beyond the “Dangers of Geertzism.” Giovanni Levi in Conversation with Giovanni Zampieri. Sociologica, 18(1), 103–116. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/19223

Issue

Section

Interviews