(photo: independent.co.uk)
On 28th of November in Paris, one of the last icons of 20th century French intellectual life turned 100. Claude Levi-Strauss not only reshaped the nature of how anthropologists do their work: he changed the world’s perception of so-called “primitive” tribes in Asia, Africa and America. His structuralism (Structural anthropology, 1967) revolutionized anthropology and sociology and is still considered a foundation for the social sciences, but it was with his 1955 book “Tristes Tropiques,” a sort of anthropological meditation based on his travels in Brazil and elsewhere in the 1930s, when he became world famous. Undoubtedly, one of the greatest minds of humankind!
Some media coverge:
NYT, 100th-Birthday Tributes Pour in for Lévi-Strauss
Open Democracy, Claude Lévi-Strauss at 100: echo of the future
The independent, Grand chieftain of anthropology lives to see his centenary