[This is a preliminary entry and will be extended in due course.] Claude Lévi-Strauss may reasonably be said to have been the most influential of all anthropologists of the twentieth century, his ideas about social organisation and human mentality having leapt the bounds of his own academic discipline and been discussed in terms of laying the groundwork for a systematic scientific study of humanity.

Claude Lévi-Strauss was born in Belgium in 1908 and raised in Paris. He studied philosophy and law at the Sorbonne in the late 1920s, passed the aggrégation in philosophy in 1931 and went to lecture in sociology at the University of São Paolo, Brazil, in 1934. He carried out ethnographic field work in the Matto Grosso in 1935 and 1938s, studying the culture and beliefs of the Bororo,

910 words

Citation: Clark, Robert. "Claude Lévi-Strauss". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 16 August 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2578, accessed 23 April 2024.]

2578 Claude Lévi-Strauss 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.