Anthropology

Claude Lévi-Strauss French anthropologist and philosopher; founder of structuralism in the human sciences. He applied Saussure’s model of linguistics to anthropology, transforming the study of myths, kinship, and “primitive” cultures. Key Concepts Structuralism: behind the diversity of cultural phenomena lie universal unconscious structures of the human mind — binary, relational, transformational Myth: myths are not chaotic narratives but systems of binary oppositions (raw/cooked, nature/culture, high/low) that resolve existential contradictions in society Mythemes: the minimal units of a myth (analogous to phonemes in linguistics); meaning emerges from relations between mythemes, not from isolated elements The Raw and the Cooked (1964): the cooked is nature transformed by culture — cuisine is a universal symbolic system that encodes the nature/culture distinction Savage mind (La Pensée sauvage, 1962): the thought of “primitive” societies is not inferior — it is a science of the concrete, of the sensible, as rigorous as modern scientific thought Bricolage vs. engineering: the bricoleur uses elements at hand for new purposes; the engineer starts from abstract concepts — myth is a form of intellectual bricolage Kinship and exchange: kinship structures (incest prohibition, exogamy) are the foundation of all society — woman as sign in exchange between groups (later feminist critique) Influenced by Ferdinand de Saussure — structural linguistics Marcel Mauss — anthropology of gift and exchange Marx — deep structures beneath the surface of phenomena Freud — unconscious and structure Influenced Foucault — episteme as unconscious structure Derrida — deconstruction of structuralism Lacan — structuralist psychoanalysis Semiology and communication theory Narratology (Greimas, Genette) Works The Elementary Structures of Kinship (1949); Tristes Tropiques (1955); Structural Anthropology (1958); The Savage Mind (1962); Mythologiques (4 vols., 1964–1971). ...