Talk:Claude Lévi-Strauss

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[edit] Is he related to the jean company?

Was he related to the people of the Levi-Strauss jean company???? Antonio Jack Daniels Martin

You mean Levi Strauss the clothing manufacturer.


No. --Girl2k (talk) 04:52, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Should something be added here about post-structural criticism?

I wonder if this article does not present a broad enough view of Lévi-Strauss in ignoring the criticism he has attracted from Derrida and others; as the previous contributors might know it was partly the reaction to Lévi-Strauss' reductive theories that gave rise to the amalgam of philosophies sometimes termed as 'post-structuralism.' The article does say some of his later work is "controversial" but perhaps that could be expounded on; comments welcome. -- Simonides 05:11, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)


looks great!

[edit] Proposed outline

This article is pretty good, but is long enough that some headers would be of assistance. This reveals that it is somewhat scattered, with an entire paragraph about how marriage customs interested him, followed by 22 paragraphs, and then another two paragraphs on the same subject. Therefore, I propose an outline:

  1. Intro
  2. Philosophy
  3. Anthropological context
  4. Marriage customs
  5. Conclusion

User:Hyacinth/Outlines

[edit] French, Belgian, or Swiss?

He was born in Brussels but appears to have spent most of his adult life in France. Does anyone know his citizenship? --Angr/tɔk tə mi 06:47, 5 October 2005 (UTC)


Levi-Strauss was a citizen of France. Iirc, his family frequently vacationed in Belgium, and that is why he was born there. Rex 07:12, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! One more thing--you speak of him in the past tense, but the article gives no death date. Is he dead or alive? --Angr/tɔk tə mi 07:47, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Two members of my dissertation committee studies with L-S, one very closely. Afaik he's still around. In fact I think the birthdate for him is wrong -- I remember many people celebrating his 100th birthday, but I can find no sources on the internet that confirm this. Maybe I'm nuts. Rex 03:59, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Or maybe, like George Burns, he celebrated his 100th birthday early, so as to be sure not to miss it. --Angr/tɔk tə mi 06:05, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

I wonder if Lévi-Strauss has already stumbled on his Wikipedia page, but be nice and let Jacques Chirac think about his old age: who, from the fool or the wiseman, has the most to be scared about? But, let's be nice to everybody, because Jacques Chirac is also part of Lévi-Strauss fan-club, which shows he's not such a simple-minded guy...

He's 96, I think. I don't know how I got that number into my head so it may be off by a year or two. He's not yet 100, though. MTBradley 17:29, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

NEITHER; He is Swiss. Every textbook I've ever read, and ever lecture I've ever had, has refered to him as being Swiss (if it has refered to his nationality at all). And I quote: "Structuralist thought began with the work of the Swiss linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure" (Barker, 2005: 806) He may have published in French, he may got a French passport during his latter life, but that is besides the point. I have changed the page accordingly. Tomsega/tɔk tə mi 19:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Lévi-Strauss is French and not just 'considered French'. To settle the question one has to look up the laws from 1908. Being born to French parents made you French and still does, but I am not sure if being born in Belgium made you a Belgian nor about double nationality, choosing at majority an other niceties pertaining to formal citizenship. As far as I am aware nobody claimed that he was Belgian except in the sense of being born there, so I changed it.al (talk) 14:57, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] One of the twentieth century's greatest intellectuals

This is a direct violation of a guideline. Please avoid peacock terms. If you think he is well cited, please provide verifiable statistics of citation of his works rather than saying "he is one of the most well cited authors" which amounts to the same thing. Vapour

Have you got an axe to grind against him? Lévi-Strauss was one of the main founder of structuralism, without which there would be no post-structuralism. He inspired more than three generations of thinkers in France and elsewhere, and his Alliance theory remained predominant in France until the 1980s, that is, 30 years after he initially formulated it. See:
"Albert Einstein (German pronunciation (help·info)) (March 14, 1879 – April 18, 1955) was a theoretical physicist widely regarded as the most important scientist of the 20th century and one of the greatest physicists of all time."
"Michel Foucault (October 15, 1926 – June 25, 1984) was a French philosopher who held a chair at the Collège de France, which he gave the title "The History of Systems of Thought." His writings have had an enormous impact on other scholarly work: Foucault's influence extends across the humanities and social sciences, and across many applied and professional areas of study."
"The name Freud is generally pronounced /fɹɔɪd/ in English and /frɔɪt/ in German. He is commonly referred to as "the father of psychoanalysis" and his work has been tremendously influential in the popular imagination – popularizing such notions as the unconscious, defence mechanisms, freudian slips and dream symbolism – while also making a long-lasting impact on fields as diverse as literature, film, marxist and feminist theories, literary criticism, philosophy, and of course, psychology.
"Ferdinand de Saussure (pronounced [fɛr.di.nã.dɘ.so.ˈsyr]) (November 26, 1857 - February 22, 1913) was a Geneva-born Swiss linguist whose ideas laid the foundation for many of the significant developments in linguistics in the 20th century. He is widely considered the 'father' of 20th-century linguistics."
"Bronisław Kasper Malinowski (April 7, 1884 – May 16, 1942) was a Polish anthropologist widely considered to be one of the most important anthropologists of the twentieth century because of his pioneering work on ethnographic fieldwork, the study of reciprocity, and his detailed contribution to the study of Melanesia."
Etc. etc. We are not talking about a minor intellectual, and Lévi-Strauss' influence has gone far outside the limits of anthropology. Much of today's work would have had a very different figure without him. You are either showing off your ignorance, or your hatred. Stop. Lapaz 15:42, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I pay a visit to a section of a public park which I haven't visited before. I notice a litter, pick it up and put it in a bin. Someone come along, take the litter from the bin and put it back on the ground.
I - "Why did you do that!???"
Someone - "Look around you. There are other litters lying around in the park. I insist that you pick up all other litters. I won't let you pick this litter until you do."
Please do not be so unreasonable. Wikipedia is free and open to everyone, and are supposed to be maintained by the collective goodwill of the community. I nor you have a responsibility to be "the" janitor of the whole park. But it is a nice thing to do if someone like myself pick up someone else's litter. You are free to collect litters in other sections of the park which you surveyed. As of your paranoia about me having an axe to grind, this is simply misplaced. I haven't heard his name until it popped up in a forum debate a while ago. Sorry but not everyone studies modern French philosophy. I don't know much about French style of gardening but I just happened to notice a litter (peacock word), which wasn't that difficult to spot. Vapour

I think the terminology used was a peacock word. It should be allowed to be posted as long as it is marked "as considered as" and <citation needed>.Adam37 21:26, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Hate to quibble but the external link to John Hopkins Guide is not very accessible.I've been seeing that link on quite a few pages lately.It's against the guidelines and shouldn't someone delete it?Zain

[edit] possible addition to Bib

I came across this reference while working on this edit in Definition.
I don't know enough about this article to decide whether this reference should be added to the Bib.

1962 "Social structure." in Anthropology today: Selections. Edited by Sol Tax, . Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [first published in 1952]

--Jtir 15:13, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lévi-Strauss Influences

The article talks a little about the influence the study of phonetics had on Lévi-Strauss, yet I don't see any mention to one of the most influential figures in the French anthropologist's work, namely, Ferdinand de Saussure. This is not something controversial, either: at several times throughout Structural Anthropology Lévi-Strauss explicitly mentions this influence (see, for example, in his "The Structure of Myths").

Another important influence that was left out from the article is that of psychoanalysis. Again, this clinical practice started by Freud had an important impact on Lévi-Strauss work, an impact he also explicitly acknowledges: in the aforementioned work, when he's discussing the therapeutic efficacy of certain rituals ("The Symbolic Efficacious"), he draws parallels between the rituals and the clinical practices of psychoanalysis, indicating the influence the latter had on his vision of how the former work.

Conversely, there's also little talk about the reception of Lévi-Strauss works; how he influenced, for example, Foucault in his search of the "historical a priori", or how his structuralist vision helped shape the French intellectual experience.

I would include a "Reception" and "Influences" section on the article myself, yet I don't feel like I'm apt to do so, as I have just begun to read Lévi-Strauss — besides, I don't have much time to do a decent work right now. Yet, if no one else does it, perhaps I'll eventually sketch out those sections... Daniel Nagase 03:05, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] French Structuralism?

Currently there is no article for French Structuralism! Anybody interested in spearheading this? No time for me now, but perhaps soon. -- greek lamb 01:49, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 99 years old

he must be 99Muntuwandi 20:58, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Splitting proposal

The problem with splitting this article into 2 articles -- one on Levi-Strauss the man, and one on the structuralist theory of myth -- is that Levi-Strauss wasn't the only structuralist interpreter of myth, and some structuralists (i.e., Propp) have interpreted the structure of myth quite differently from him. I agree that we need an article on structuralist mythology in general, but the contents of the "Structuralist approach to myth" section of this article are specific to Levi-Strauss (or, at least, Levi-Strauss was the first to develop this particular kind of structural interpretation). Thus, I don't think we'd gain anything by cutting out that section from this article. Now, what we could do is create that article on structural mythology and make one particular section of that article on Levi-Strauss's theories. --Phatius McBluff 06:47, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm none too keen on the split myself. Levi-Strauss is the overwhelming contributor to the structural study of myth and its central to his own career. Let's not split. --Smilo Don 01:07, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I think that three nos and no yeses is excuse enough for removing that ghastly split tag at the top of the page. If anyone has any qualms with me removing it, they can state their reason here, so it will be no harm done. --Le vin blanc (talk) 08:27, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Adding references

Someone just removed the "unreferenced" notice. It's true that I tried to add plenty of references while adding the section on the structuralist approach to myth. However, the preceding sections still do lack references. Someone obviously spent time working on those sections, and since no one has riddled the article with "citation needed" notices, everyone presumably thinks this article's claims are sound. If so, someone should be able to find more references for this article. I'm not going to put the "unreferenced" notice back up, but I do think someone should be able to put up more references. --Phatius McBluff 22:07, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

He's born in Brussels, that's right. That makes him Belgian, not French. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.144.206.91 (talk) 13:00, 1 June 2008 (UTC)