Claude Levi-Strauss: The Anthropologist as Hero

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The popularity of Levi-Strauss, in the words of the editors of this collection of current essays and reviews, resides "in his seeming rejection of history and humanism, in his refusal to see Western civilization as privileged and unique, in his view of the human mind as programmed, in his emphasis on form over content, and in his insistence that the savage mind is not inferior to the civilized." This collection includes articles on Levi-Strauss' works and essays discussing this controversial anthropologist/ethnologist's place in the realm of contemporary thought and philosophy. Levi-Strauss is perhaps best known for his doctrine of "structuralism" which he has defined, at one point, as "the search for unsuspected harmonies...[and] the discovery of a system of relations latent in a series of objects." The doctrine of structuralism is used by Levi-Strauss as the skeleton key to the study of the development of human culture in all its variety and in its origins. He applies its framework in his study of economics, social customs, language, mythology, and though he's an exact observer and tireless collector of facts, his overall view presents all culture as a kind of language to be decoded and interpreted based on inherent, preformed laws within the structure of the mind. The contributors to this volume include George Steiner, in a discussion of the philosophical and historical implications of Levi-Strauss' work; Susan Sontag, who focuses on the anthropologist's antihistorical approach and its relatedness to what she terms the "intellectual homelessness" portrayed in modern literature; Peter Caw, who has contributed an essay on outgrowths of Levi-Strauss' writings and the application of structuralism to other fields; and Robert L. Zimmerman and Lionel Abel, whose essays trace the relevance of the Levi-Strauss canon to the humanities. Edmund Leach, Francis Huxley, H. Stuart Hughes, Sanche de Gramont, Hugo G. Nutini, Bob Scholte, Colin M. Turnbull, Robert F. Murphy, and the Editors of Timeare also represented.