Claude Lévi-Strauss dies at 100 in Paris

 

Lévi-Strauss exerted an enormous influence on the humanities over the last forty years. Nearly anyone pursuing a graduate degree in English, Philosophy, Religious Studies, History, or Anthropology (the list goes on) has had to wrestle with his ideas a bit. His obit by Nadim Audi in the New York Times today made me think about how much began and ended between Sir James Frazier (The Golden Bough) and Lévi-Strauss.

It is appropriate on All is Telling that I recognize the connection between story-telling, interpretation, religion, myth, and anthropology. The obit concludes with:

“Mythologiques,” . . . ends by suggesting that the logic of mythology is so powerful that myths almost have a life independent from the peoples who tell them. In his view, they speak through the medium of humanity and become, in turn, the tools with which humanity comes to terms with the world’s greatest mystery: the possibility of not being, the burden of mortality. 

Also, a French intellectual trivia factoid for you:

From 1927 to 1932, Claude obtained degrees in law and philosophy at the University of Paris, then taught in a local high school, the Lycée Janson de Sailly, where his fellow teachers included Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.