Claude Lévi-Strauss: The Formative YearsLévi-Strauss is one of the major intellectual figures of the twentieth century. His theory of structuralism has been influential not only in anthropology, but across the entire field of the humanities and social sciences. This book looks at the formative period of his career, from the 1940s to the early 1960s, where he attempts to define both his own place in anthropology and the place of anthropology in the wider context of the human sciences in France. Through a close reading of key texts, Christopher Johnson provides an introduction to key aspects of Lévi-Strauss thought, at the same time posing more general questions concerning the construction of theory and the different modes of conceptualization that inform theory. Johnson looks at the ideological and autobiographical dimensions of Lévi-Strauss work, and demonstrates how the impact of structuralism as an intellectual movement has clearly been greater than the sum of its theoretical parts. |
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anthropology of religions Apotheosis of Augustus chapter chief Cinna Claude Lévi-Strauss CLS2 coherence Collège de France concept contemporary context Critique cultural Cybernetics described dialectical disciplines distinction Durkheim Elementary Structures essay essential ethnographer's ethnographic ethnologist ethnology example existentialism exogamy experience fact fieldwork final France French anthropology function Georges Gurvitch gift Gurvitch human and social human sciences individual information theory intellectual Jacques Derrida kind kinship knowledge language Leiris Lévi linguistics logical magic Marcel Mauss Mauss metaphor model of exchange myth Nambikwara nature neolithic notion object Paris passage philosophy place of anthropology political potlatch present principle of reciprocity problem psychological question Race and History reference relations relationship ritual Rousseau Sartre Savage Mind scientific seems seen sense shaman simply social sciences societies sociology Strauss structural analysis Structural Anthropology texts theoretical theory thought totemism traditional trans Tristes tropiques unconscious universal Wiener writing