Claude Lévi-Strauss

Claude Lévi-Strauss was born on the 28th of November 1908 in Brussels. His parents were French Jews who had moved there for his father's work as a portrait painter. The family later settled in Paris, living on a street named after Claude Lorrain. This location held personal significance for the young boy who would grow to admire the artist's work. During the First World War, he lived with his maternal grandfather. The old man served as the Rabbi of Versailles. Their home sat attached to the synagogue by a long inner passage. Lévi-Strauss described this space as an impassable frontier between the profane world and another realm lacking human warmth.

Fieldwork In Brazil

In 1935, Lévi-Strauss accepted a last-minute offer to join a French cultural mission to Brazil. He became a visiting professor of sociology at the University of São Paulo while his wife Dina worked as a visiting professor of ethnology. They conducted research among the Guaycuru and Bororó Indian tribes during their first expedition. A second journey took place in 1938 when they studied the Nambikwara and Tupi-Kawahib societies. This trip lasted more than half a year before his wife contracted an eye infection that halted her participation. Lévi-Strauss completed the study alone. Edmund Leach noted from Tristes Tropiques that he could not have spent more than a few weeks in any single location. He was never able to converse easily with native informants in their own language.

Exile And New York

Lévi-Strauss returned to France in 1939 to serve as a liaison agent on the Maginot Line. After the French capitulation in 1940, he lost his teaching position under Vichy racial laws due to his Jewish ancestry. He escaped to Martinique by boat aboard the freighter Capitaine Paul-Lemerle. From there he traveled through South America to Puerto Rico where customs agents investigated him for German letters found in his luggage. In 1941 he secured a position at the New School for Social Research in New York City. He became a founding member of the École Libre des Hautes Études alongside Roman Jakobson. During dinner at Columbia University's Faculty House in 1942, Franz Boas died in Lévi-Strauss's arms. This intimate association gave his early work a distinctive American inclination.

When and where was Claude Lévi-Strauss born?

Claude Lévi-Strauss was born on the 28th of November 1908 in Brussels. His parents were French Jews who had moved there for his father's work as a portrait painter.

What expeditions did Claude Lévi-Strauss conduct in Brazil during the 1930s?

In 1935, Claude Lévi-Strauss joined a French cultural mission to Brazil to study the Guaycuru and Bororó Indian tribes. A second journey took place in 1938 when he studied the Nambikwara and Tupi-Kawahib societies alone after his wife contracted an eye infection.

Why did Claude Lévi-Strauss leave France in 1940?

Claude Lévi-Strauss lost his teaching position under Vichy racial laws due to his Jewish ancestry following the French capitulation in 1940. He escaped to Martinique by boat aboard the freighter Capitaine Paul-Lemerle before traveling through South America to Puerto Rico.

Which major works did Claude Lévi-Strauss publish between 1949 and 1962?

The Elementary Structures of Kinship appeared in 1949 and quickly gained recognition as a major anthropological work. In 1962 he published The Savage Mind which discussed forms of thought common to all human beings.

How old was Claude Lévi-Strauss when he died on the 30th of October 2009?

Claude Lévi-Strauss died on the 30th of October 2009 at age 100. French President Nicolas Sarkozy described him as one of the greatest ethnologists of all time.

Claude Lévi-Strauss

Fieldwork In Brazil

Exile And New York

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Common questions

When and where was Claude Lévi-Strauss born?

What expeditions did Claude Lévi-Strauss conduct in Brazil during the 1930s?

Why did Claude Lévi-Strauss leave France in 1940?

Which major works did Claude Lévi-Strauss publish between 1949 and 1962?

How old was Claude Lévi-Strauss when he died on the 30th of October 2009?

Kinship Structures

Myth And Oppositions

Legacy And Criticism