Lévi-Strauss’ structuralism was an effort to reduce the enormous amount of information about cultural systems to what he believed were essentials, the romal relationship among their elements. He viewed cultures as systems of communicative, and he constructed models based on structural linguistics (he was influenced by linguist Roman Jakobson), information theory, and cybernetics to interpret them (online encyclopedia Brittanica). Lévi-Strauss traveled in Brazil and lived intermittently with the Amazonian tribes, especially the Nambikwara.
His work La Pensée sauvage concluded that unity in the binary structures of society would be found by comparing social structures. His most prolific work is The Elementary Structures of Kinship. This work was based on alliances formed through marriage between women of one group and men from another.
-Criticism-
He himself admitted that he was criticized as being “Idealistic and mentalism-accused of seeing structures of thought as the cause of culture, Sometimes confusing them” (Theory 162).
Criticized for assuming that kinship systems are dependent on women being circulated as objects in network of exchange.
Criticized for explaining universal subordination of women through focusing on the cultural interpretations of biological attributes.
Criticized for his dualistic thinking reinforcing essentialism and the binary.
His thought of categories places things in opposition such as male/female, nature/culture, and masculine/feminine.
-His Works-
In 1949 Lévi-Strauss published his first major work, Les Structures élémentaires de la parenté (rev. ed., 1967; The Elementary Structures of Kinship).
He attained popular recognition with Tristes tropiques
(1955; A World on the Wane), a literary intellectual autobiography.
Other publications include: Anthropologie structurale (rev. ed., 1961; Structural Anthropology),
La Pensée sauvage (1962; The Savage Mind), and Le Totémisme aujourd’hui (1962; Totemism).
His massive Mythologiques appeared in four volumes: Le Cru et le cuit (1964; The Raw and the Cooked), Du miel aux cendres
(1966; From Honey to Ashes), L’Origine des manières de table
(1968; The Origin of Table Manners), and L’Homme nu (1971; The Naked Man).
In 1973 a second volume of Anthropologie structurale appeared. La Voie des masques, 2 vol.
(1975; The Way of the Masks), analyzed the art, religion, and mythology of native American Northwest Coast Indians.
In 1983 he published a collection of essays, Le Regard éloigné (The View from Afar).
His work La Pensée sauvage concluded that unity in the binary structures of society would be found by comparing social structures. His most prolific work is The Elementary Structures of Kinship. This work was based on alliances formed through marriage between women of one group and men from another.
-Criticism-
He himself admitted that he was criticized as being “Idealistic and mentalism-accused of seeing structures of thought as the cause of culture, Sometimes confusing them” (Theory 162).
Criticized for assuming that kinship systems are dependent on women being circulated as objects in network of exchange.
Criticized for explaining universal subordination of women through focusing on the cultural interpretations of biological attributes.
Criticized for his dualistic thinking reinforcing essentialism and the binary.
His thought of categories places things in opposition such as male/female, nature/culture, and masculine/feminine.
-His Works-
In 1949 Lévi-Strauss published his first major work, Les Structures élémentaires de la parenté (rev. ed., 1967; The Elementary Structures of Kinship).
He attained popular recognition with Tristes tropiques
(1955; A World on the Wane), a literary intellectual autobiography.
Other publications include: Anthropologie structurale (rev. ed., 1961; Structural Anthropology),
La Pensée sauvage (1962; The Savage Mind), and Le Totémisme aujourd’hui (1962; Totemism).
His massive Mythologiques appeared in four volumes: Le Cru et le cuit (1964; The Raw and the Cooked), Du miel aux cendres
(1966; From Honey to Ashes), L’Origine des manières de table
(1968; The Origin of Table Manners), and L’Homme nu (1971; The Naked Man).
In 1973 a second volume of Anthropologie structurale appeared. La Voie des masques, 2 vol.
(1975; The Way of the Masks), analyzed the art, religion, and mythology of native American Northwest Coast Indians.
In 1983 he published a collection of essays, Le Regard éloigné (The View from Afar).