dallashistory

Wow! 100 years! I don't expect to live that long. Actually hope I don't. He may be gone, but his ideas remain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Levi-Strauss
Quote:
Claude Lévi-Strauss (French pronunciation: [klod levi stʁos]; (Brussels, 28 November 1908 – Paris, 30 October 2009) [1][2][3] was a French anthropologist and ethnologist, known as the "father of modern anthropology".[4] He was also one of the central figures in the structuralist school of thought where his ideas reached into fields including the humanities and philosophy. Structuralism has been defined as "the search for the underlying patterns of thought in all forms of human activity."[2]

Lévi-Strauss organized expeditions into the French countryside when young, and later studied in Paris, where he went on to teach. He later traveled and did research in Brazil. He was drafted into the French army, but after France was overrun by the invading Germans, he escaped to New York, where he taught at the New School for Social Research. However, in 1944, he returned to France.

Koichiro Matsuura, director-general of UNESCO's cultural section, stated that his theories "changed the way people perceived each other, striking down such divisive concepts as race and opening the way for a new vision based on recognition of the common bond of humanity."[2] Setha Low, president of the American Anthropological Association, said Lévi-Strauss was one of the most "innovative and creative theorists that anthropology has ever produced."[2]
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