Claude Lévi-Strauss
Belgian-born French anthropologist and key figure in structuralism.
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Claude Lévi-Strauss (28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a Belgian-born French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social Anthropology at the Collège de France between 1959 and 1982, was elected a member of the Académie française in 1973 and was a member of the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris.
Lore & Background
Lévi-Strauss argued that the 'savage' mind had the same structures as the 'civilized' mind and that human characteristics are the same everywhere. These observations culminated in his famous book Tristes Tropiques (1955) which established his position as one of the central figures in the structuralist school of thought. He won the 1986 International Nonino Prize in Italy.
Reader's Guide
His only ethnographic fieldwork took place in Brazil from 1935 to 1939, during which he studied the Guaycuru, Bororó, Nambikwara, and Tupi-Kawahib societies. His foundational structuralist works include The Elementary Structures of Kinship (1949) and Structural Anthropology (1958).
Did You Know?
- He became the first member of the Académie française to reach the age of 100.
- He was a founding member of the École Libre des Hautes Études in New York during World War II.
- He died on 30 October 2009 at age 100.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Claude Lévi-Strauss (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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