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Title: Theories of Claude Levi Strauss
Contents
Biography    3
Contributions of Claude Levi Strauss    4
Theories of Claude Levi Strauss    5
Kinship and Exchange    5
Structure    6
Mana or the Empty Signifier    6
Kinship    7
Myth    7
Art and Structure    8
Criticism    8
Works Cited    10
Biography
    Claude Levi Strauss, who was often known as the ‘father of modern anthropology’ was a French social anthropologist as well as one of the leading exponents of structuralism. According to Ziolkowski, the world of social anthropology was revolutionized through the hands of Claude Levi Strauss, who implemented the methods of structural analysis that were proposed and developed by Ferdinand de Saussure in the arena of cultural relations.
    Claude Levi Strauss was born in Brussels, Belgium to his French parents in the year 1908. His early childhood was spent in France, with paints and crayons in hand, as both of his parents were artists. In the early 1930s, Claude Levi Strauss completed his studies on philosophy from Sorbonne. However, his desire to escape from the philosophical stringencies and orthodoxies prompted him to take up the position of a professor of anthropology at the University of Sao Paulo in the year 1934. It is during this year that Levi Strauss conducted his field research on the Indians of Brazil. After the completion of his military service in France, Claude Levi Strauss escaped France in order to avoid persecution. He fled to the United States, where he accepted the responsibility of teaching at New School in New York from 1941 to 1945. According to Tremlett, in the year 1941, Levi Strauss came in close acquaintance with Roman Jakobson, who introduced him to the world of linguistics and influenced Levi Strauss’ turn towards linguistic and structuralist approach in regard to his post war exploration of anthropology.
The French anthropologist Levi Strauss was appointed as member of the Académie Française in the year 2008. The following year, that is 2009, he accepted the position of Dean in the same institution. In the year 1932, Claude Levi Strauss married Dina Dreyfus, following which in the year 1946, he remarried Rose Marie Ullmo. Finally, in the year 1954, Levi Strauss married for the third time, Monique Roman. On October 30, 2009, Claude Levi Strauss passed away at the age 100 years. He is survived by Monique and the two sons from his second and third marriages, Laurent and Matthieu.
Contributions of Claude Levi Strauss
    The period spent by Claude Levi Strauss in the United States led to the construction and development of the notion of ‘structural anthropology’. The critical theory of structuralism was influenced by the propositions of Levi Strauss’ theory of structuralism. Claude Levi Strauss’ idea of structuralism is an amalgamation between the naturalistic study of human beings and the philosophical attitude regarding the same. This was derived from two different theoretical approaches. The first being his association with the American cultural anthropology, and the second, his close contact with the structural linguist, Roman Jakobson in the year 1941. According to Godelier (50), his deep delving into the study of American Indians from North and South America, made him realise as well as derive an understanding regarding the complexity of the anthropological accounts, thereby influencing him to deny the reductionist perspective and approach towards culture. Levi Strauss’ close contact with the linguistic structuralists made him understand that the structural approach can both generalize as well as be an authentic representation of the richness and specificity of the original material.
    The basic idea of structural anthropology is to explore the way in which the human brain is systematically organized, or in a way structured, in order to combine and recombine the different unites of information to create models. These models, in turn, explain the conditions of the world in which people reside. The models can also serve to provide imaginary alternatives as well as tools in order to operate in the world. The responsibility of the structural anthropologist is therefore, not to explore and understand the reasons behind the transformations of a particular culture, but to seek, explore, understand and illustrate the principles...