Prelude

Liora Bresler

pp. 7-11

in: Liora Bresler (ed), Knowing bodies, moving minds, Berlin, Springer, 2004

Abstract

In his discussion of the concept of culture, Clifford Geertz, the famous anthropologist, refers to Susanne Langer's "Grande Idée"—certain ideas that burst upon the intellectual landscape with a tremendous force, becoming the conceptual center-point around which a comprehensive system of analysis can be built, promising to resolve many fundamental problems at once (Geertz, 1973, p. 3). The concept of embodiment, I believe, is one such Grande Idée.

Cited authors

Langer Susanne

Geertz Clifford