Lévi-Strauss, << LAY vee STROHS, >> Claude (1908-2009), a French anthropologist, developed structuralism in the study of human culture. Structuralism is a method of analysis that examines the structures that underlie relationships between things, rather than simply the things themselves.
Lévi-Strauss derived the structural approach from structural linguistics, a science that studies languages through the structure of their sounds and words. He used structuralism to study family relationships, the myths of North and South American Indigenous (native) peoples, and even cooking methods. According to Lévi-Strauss, myths throughout the world are transformations of one another. The myths of different cultures may appear to be different. But if the myths have the same structure, they may actually be saying the same thing.
Lévi-Strauss was born on Nov. 28, 1908, in Brussels, Belgium, and studied at the University of Paris. His books include The Elementary Structures of Kinship (1949), Tristes Tropiques (1953), The Savage Mind (1962), and a four-volume study of myth, Mythologiques (1964-1971). Lévi-Strauss died on Oct. 31, 2009, at the age of 100.
See also Mythology (Structuralist approaches) .
