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Biography of Claude Levi-Strauss

Claude Levi-Strauss was a French ethnographer, sociologist, and cultural anthropologist. He was born on November 28, 1908, in Brussels, Belgium, into an artistic family. Levi-Strauss studied law and philosophy at the Sorbonne, where he also attended seminars by ethnographer and sociologist Marcel Mauss. After completing his university education and serving in the army, he became a high school teacher.

In 1935, Levi-Strauss, along with his wife, embarked on a journey to Brazil, where he soon became a professor at the University of São Paulo. During their first year, the couple conducted an expedition to the indigenous tribes of Caduveo and Bororo. The ethnographic collection they gathered there was exhibited in Paris, generating interest and financial support for Levi-Strauss's continued expeditions. He organized another expedition to the Nambikwara and Tupi-Kawahib tribes, which lasted over a year. Levi-Strauss documented these Brazilian journeys in his book "Tristes Tropiques."

During the German occupation of France in World War II, due to his Jewish heritage, Levi-Strauss was unable to remain in Paris. He worked as a teacher at a lyceum in Perpignan and later as a philosophy professor at the Polytechnic School of Montpellier, but he was dismissed after the implementation of racial laws. Thanks to the Rockefeller Foundation's program to rescue European scholars, Levi-Strauss was invited to the United States in 1940. In New York, he lectured on sociology and ethnology at the New School for Social Research. He had close relationships with prominent American ethnologists, particularly Franz Boas, known as the "father of American anthropology." In 1942, Levi-Strauss was present at Boas's death at Columbia University.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Levi-Strauss conducted active scientific and teaching activities in France. He led a research group at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and served as the deputy director of ethnology at the Museum of Man. He also headed the fifth section, previously led by Marcel Mauss, at the Practical School of Higher Studies, which was renamed the Comparative Study of Non-Literate Religions. In 1952, Levi-Strauss wrote "Race and History" on the request of UNESCO, exploring cultural diversity and intercultural relations.

In the early 1960s, Levi-Strauss became the director of the Department of Social Anthropology at the Collège de France. He established the Laboratory of Social Anthropology, providing young scientists with research opportunities. The laboratory produced dissertations and organized expeditions to various parts of the world, with researchers from France and other countries. In 1961, Levi-Strauss, along with linguist Emile Benveniste and geographer Pierre Gourou, founded the academic anthropological journal "L'Homme" (Man) to parallel English-language journals such as "Man" and "American Anthropologist." He was also a member of the French Academy from 1973.