Claude Lévi-Strauss

Claude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist who analyzed kinship, myth, and classification as systems shaped by underlying structures of human thought.

Structural anthropology: An approach to anthropology that explains cultural forms through relations within underlying systems. This is the method Lévi-Strauss developed to study kinship, myths, and classification.
The Elementary Structures of Kinship: Lévi-Strauss's study of marriage rules and kinship, first published in 1949. It applies structural analysis to exchange and marriage alliances.
Roman Jakobson: A Russian-American linguist whose work on phonology and poetic language shaped twentieth-century structural linguistics. Jakobson introduced Lévi-Strauss to structural linguistics during their wartime encounter in New York.
Claude Lévi-Strauss and structuralism: The intellectual relationship between Lévi-Strauss's anthropology and the broader structuralist movement. His comparative method became a prominent model for structural analysis beyond anthropology.
Structuralism: An intellectual movement that explains cultural phenomena through systems of relations rather than isolated elements. His anthropological work helped extend structuralist analysis across the humanities and social sciences.
Alliance theory: A theory that explains kinship through rules governing marriage and exchanges between groups. Lévi-Strauss argued that marriage rules create reciprocal ties among social groups.
Franz Boas: A German-American anthropologist who helped establish cultural anthropology in the United States. Boas supported Lévi-Strauss's appointment at the New School for Social Research.
French anthropology: The traditions and institutions of anthropological research developed in France. Lévi-Strauss reshaped French anthropology through his research institutions and theoretical program.
Structural linguistics: The study of language as a system whose elements gain value through relations and differences. Lévi-Strauss adapted its relational approach to the study of culture.
Mythologiques: Lévi-Strauss's four-volume analysis of myths from the Americas, published between 1964 and 1971. The series traces how myths transform through recurring relations and oppositions.

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