Claude Lévi-Strauss RIP
The great structuralist anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss has died a few weeks before his 101st birthday.
Claude Lévi-Strauss in Brazil in 1935.
As an archaeological student, who dabbled with a bit of anthropology (as we all did), Lévi-Strauss is one of those ‘names’, whose ideas helped shape, indeed create, the ideas being studied. I have to admit that at the time I didn’t pay as much attention as I could have, the problem of course was that I ‘had to read’ his books, they were assigned for the course. So, of course, I’d much rather be reading someone else’s! Later when I wanted to begin to contextualize my ideas within the theories and ideas that have shaped the field of anthropology I reread Lévi-Strauss in a more serious manner, and it was far more fun as it was for my own interest.
In fact, it was after rereading his famous book Tristes Tropiques, I began to start rereading some of the other ‘classic’ anthropology texts, a process I am slowly going through. In this book I liked the neologism “entropology”, which he developed to suggest the imminent disappearance of its ‘object’ as a founding motive for anthropology. As regular readers of this blog will be aware, I’m a sucker for a good neologism, especially one that involves critique!
The striking thing to me about Claude Lévi-Strauss, and many of his contemporaries, was his willingness to ‘think big’, to think about the totality but not to forget the individual, for example, his anti-racism speech to Unesco in which he savagely attacked the push for one world civilization. Such combinations of thinking remain an inspiration.
His ideas and concepts I am sure will continue to influence many more people, and his is a voice that cannot be easily extinguished: Claude Lévi-Strauss ¡Presente!
Some Obituraries:
The Times. Claude Lévi-Strauss: French social anthropologist. The Times. November 4, 2009.
Alexander F. Remington. Claude Lévi-Strauss, French anthropologist, dies at 100. Washington Post. Tuesday, November 3, 2009; 12:15 PM.
Angela Doland. French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss dies. Associated Press. November 3, 2009.
Edward Rothstein. Claude Lévi-Strauss, Anthropologist, Dies at 100. New York Times. November 3, 2009.
BBC. Anthropologist Levi-Strauss dies. BBC. Tuesday, 3 November 2009.
Lizzy Davies. French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss dies aged 100. guardian.co.uk. Tuesday 3 November 2009.
Daily Telegraph. Obituary: Claude Lévi-Strauss. Daily Telegraph. 03 Nov 2009.
