Levi-Strauss, Anthropology, and Aesthetics [Hardcover]

A wide-ranging 2007 study of Claude L?vi-Strauss's aesthetic thought.This wide-ranging and original study of Claude L?vi-Strausss aesthetic thought demonstrates not only its centrality within his overall oeuvre but also the importance of Levi-Strauss for contemporary aesthetic enquiry. L?vi-Strauss, Anthropology and Aesthetics combines the different perspectives of anthropology, philosophy, aesthetic theory and literary criticism into a highly imaginative whole.This wide-ranging and original study of Claude L?vi-Strausss aesthetic thought demonstrates not only its centrality within his overall oeuvre but also the importance of Levi-Strauss for contemporary aesthetic enquiry. L?vi-Strauss, Anthropology and Aesthetics combines the different perspectives of anthropology, philosophy, aesthetic theory and literary criticism into a highly imaginative whole.In a wide-ranging 2007 study of Claude L?vi-Strauss's aesthetic thought, Boris Wiseman demonstrates not only its centrality within his oeuvre but also the importance of Levi-Strauss for contemporary aesthetic enquiry. Reconstructing the internal logic of L?vi-Strauss's thinking on aesthetics, and showing how anthropological and aesthetic ideas intertwine at the most elemental levels in the elaboration of his system of thought, Wiseman demonstrates that L?vi-Strauss's aesthetic theory forms an integral part of his approach to Amerindian masks, body decoration and mythology. He reveals the significance of L?vi-Strauss's anthropological analysis of an 'untamed' mode of thinking (pens?e sauvage) at work in totemism, classification and myth-making for his conception of art and aesthetic experience. In this way, structural anthropology is shown to lead to ethnoaesthetics. L?vi-Strauss, Anthropology and Aesthetics adopts a broad-ranging approach that combines the different perspectives of anthropology, philosophy, aesthetic theory and literary criticism into an unusual and imaginative whole.Introduction: Ethnoaesthetics; 1. lS4