Claude Levi-Strauss, 1908-2009

Anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss died this past Friday, October 30th. His work with folklore and myth has certainly influenced both anthropological and folklore studies.

Here are some links and excerpts from articles about his life:

Claude Levi-Strauss, French anthropologist, dies at 100

Claude Lévi-Strauss, 100, one of the preeminent social anthropologists of the 20th century, whose erudite, often mind-bendingly labored studies of indigenous Brazilian tribes led to influential theories examining human behavior and culture, died over the weekend in Paris. No cause of death was reported.

Mr. Lévi-Strauss was often paired with writers Jean-Paul Sartre and André Malraux as the towering French intellectuals of the past century. He said his life's work was "an attempt to show that there are laws of mythical thinking as strict and rigorous as you would find in the natural sciences."

He was best-known for popularizing a social science theory known as "structuralism," a philosophical method of approaching anthropology that identified behavioral codes that were crucial to the functioning of any society and that are inherent in the human mind.

Anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss remembered

Much of Levi-Strauss' widely-taught anthropological writings contain charts and maps of concepts that explore key elements of culture. In trying to explain various myths, such as the Oedipus story from Greek mythology, he assigned key themes and events to columns to explore the relationships and values within.

He found that myths were a way of retelling stories such as the relationship between the living and the dead, Lurhmann said. The myth form makes these difficult-to-deal-with concepts more complicated, but also softens them and makes them more comprehensible.

"His fundamental lesson was that culture shapes the way we think far more fundamentally than we are aware," she said.

Here is a short obituary off the AP Wire.

Claude Levi-Strauss

PARIS (AP) — Claude Levi-Strauss, an influential French intellectual who was widely considered the father of modern anthropology, has died. He was 100.

The Academie Francaise did not give a cause or date of death in the announcement Tuesday. French media said he died Friday.

Levi-Strauss was widely regarded as having reshaped the field of anthropology, introducing new concepts concerning common patterns of behavior and thought, especially myths, in primitive and modern societies.

During his 6-decade-long career, he authored many literary and anthropological classics, including "Tristes Tropiques" (1955), "The Savage Mind" (1963) and "The Raw and the Cooked" (1964).

Born on Nov. 28, 1908, in Brussels, Belgium, to French parents of Jewish origin, he was forced to flee France during World War II after Germany invaded and the collaborationist Vichy regime passed anti-Jewish laws. He ended up in New York.

He was widely regarded as having reshaped anthropology, becoming the leading advocate of what is now known as structuralism. His ideas reached into fields including the humanities and philosophy.

Finally, some of his important works include:

The Savage Mind

Tristes Tropiques

Myth and Meaning: Cracking the Code of Culture

The Raw and the Cooked: Mythologiques, Volume 1

The Origin of Table Manners: Mythologiques, Volume 3

The Naked Man: Mythologiques, Volume 4