Levi-Strauss

While British anthropologists such as Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown argued that kin were based on descent from a common ancestor, Levi-Strauss believed that these relationships had more to do with the ‘Alliance’ between two families, when a group of women married another man. Unlike Radcliff-Brown, who considered nuclear family as the unit of the kinship system, Levi-Strauss thought was the nuclear family unit, but the relationship between two families, i.e., the Alliance that occurs between two families when a man gives to his sister in exchange for another woman. Between 1940 and early 1950s, Levi-Strauss continued to publish and garnered considerable success. With his return to France, he became involved in the administration of the CNRS and the Musee de l’homme, before coming to occupy a place in the ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes is also, points out that the savage thought, in 1962, was a real shock in the human sciences, for his recognition of the mental workload of evil called primitive, for his advocacy of a science of the Neolithic, heiress also already from a previous research tradition, which got ratings of all natural (and social) reality through the use of sensitive properties, analytical procedures not so away from your subject as it will modern science.The four volumes of their mythological (1964-1971) constitute one of the most decisive and original works of the anthropology of the 20th century, with its unique approach to American mythology; analyses on them the “mythemes” or significant elements of thousands of these through all kinds of oppositions (high/low, raw/cooked, dry/wet, etc.). Is it reminds us, that was awarded in numerous countries and universities, formed disciples such as Philippe Descola and Francoise Heritier – but was also strongly criticised by contemporaries and successors.

For example, who objected to its theoretical conclusions and not supported by a sustained field work. Do not admit it? I discovered early that more was a man of desktop that field, acknowledged in an interview with Didier Eribon, author of conversations with Levi – Strauss, in 1988. Already in the 1980s, the poststructuralist philosophers – Foucault, Derrida, Barthes – criticized his lack of interest in the history and experience. He married three times–the last in 1954 – and had two sons. The world began without man and will end without it, he wrote in Tristes Tropiques. A confession of melancholy which, in tune with the evolution of the century, also signed his work. Finally, in 2008, one hundred years, appeared a selection of his work in the collection La Pleiade, which is usually devoted to certain renowned writers. In her unpublished pieces were also collected. Graus, leaves US the 30th October this year 2009. Peace to his remains original author and source of the article.