Portrait: AI-generated imagined likeness
Philosopher · Writer · Teacher
French anthropologist and thinker. He explored the structure behind culture through kinship structure and myth analysis. He is a person who thinks about structuralism.
View in catalogParis
Work
Brazil
Work
Tristes Tropiques
1955
Book
Structural Anthropology
1958
Book
Development of structuralism
1950–1970
Movement · Participant
Map: Natural Earth (PD)
Born in Belgium and educated in France. When he was young, he conducted research in Brazil, which gave him the experience to reconsider the European-centered understanding of culture.
In works such as ``Sad Tropics'' and ``Structural Anthropology,'' he criticized the simple division between savagery and civilization. He analyzed myths and kinship systems and explored the mechanisms of thinking common to human culture.
While writing a record of his travels, Lévi-Strauss wrote not only the heroic stories of explorers, but also his discomfort with modern civilization changing other cultures. He is a person who reconsidered the very perspective of anthropology.
When we study Lévi-Strauss, we learn that 20th century thought doubted the progressive view of history and Western centrism, and sought to understand culture as a structure of relationships. He represents a major shift in the humanities and social sciences, and is also useful for comparing the history of thought.
