Anthropology and myth : lectures, 1951-1982 /

To deduce the mythological nature of Holy Grail romances, Levi-Strauss draws parallels between Celtic narratives and Algonquian Indian famine stories. He demonstrates that the ``noble houses'' of medieval Europe, which made extensive use of fictive kinship, are a social unit common to the Yurok tribe of California. For this noted French anthropologist, structural anthropology is a tool for unearthing universal elements in customs, myths and kinship systems around the world. These lecture notes and skeletal outlines for college courses that he taught make dry reading. However, they summarize most of the themes elaborated in his popular books. Chapters trace the spread of astronomical knowledge from South America northward, compare attitudes of the living toward the dead and explore cannibalism, totemism and ritualistic cross-dressing between sexes. (April) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

For the past 35 years, the work of Levi-Strauss has generated countless debates on structuralism and spurred controversies on ethnographic methodology in anthropological circles worldwide. This work (primarily a series of lectures presented at the Sorbonne) documents some of the thought processes that led the author to formulate his ideas on mythology, ritual, and social structure and the transformational rules which he perceived in these cultural spheres. Levi Strauss often recapitulates the contributions of other cultural anthropologists, allowing the reader to place his essays in their proper intellectual context, and adding a historical dimension to the collection. The lectures are arranged by topic rather than chronologically , though there is a chronological listing appended. An important publication. Winifred Lambrecht, Anthropology Dept., Brown Univ., Providence, R.I. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.