Look. Listen. Read - The Collected Works of Claude Lévi-Strauss, Volume 12

Author: Claude Lévi-Strauss (France)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: Claude Lévi-Strauss is a renowned 20th-century French structuralist master and cultural anthropologist, the founder of structuralist anthropology, and was once hailed as one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century in France. He categorized all human kinship relationships into three structures and two forms of exchange, believing that social anthropology should primarily study the rules of transformation in deep structures. This small book, Seeing, Hearing, Reading, is deeply reflective, as the act of observing paintings, listening to music, and reading novels always revolves around rationality and reasonableness. This book is part of the Claude Lévi-Strauss Collected Works series. Claude Lévi-Strauss is a renowned 20th-century French structuralist master and cultural anthropologist, the founder of structuralist anthropology, and was once hailed as one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century in France. He categorized all human kinship relationships into three structures and two forms of exchange, believing that social anthropology should primarily study the rules of transformation in deep structures. The 14-volume Claude Lévi-Strauss Collected Works comprehensively translates the life's works of this French structuralist anthropologist, showcasing the entirety of his academic system. Claude Lévi-Strauss is a distinguished professor emeritus at the Collège de France, a member of the French Academy, an internationally renowned anthropologist, a key founder of French structuralist humanistic thought, and the only surviving member today among the original five "structuralist masters." In the French culture that highly values humanistic theory, the two "national intellectual heroes" after World War II should be: the existentialist philosopher Sartre and the structuralist anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. The Chinese edition of the Claude Lévi-Strauss Collected Works (hereinafter referred to as "the Collected Works") was published by the China Renmin University Press as the author approached his centennial, giving it multifaceted significance. In short, the publication of the Collected Works marks the active development of Sino-French humanistic academic exchanges in recent years and an important academic achievement of Chinese humanistic and social sciences since the implementation of the reform and opening-up policy. It also demonstrates that China has taken another step forward in aligning with the global academic community. The translators have introduced the main themes and significance of the author's academic thought in the postface of each book. Here, I will briefly discuss the position of Claude Lévi-Strauss's academic thought within the broader Western humanistic and social sciences and its potential implications for the modernization of Chinese humanistic and social sciences. This book is part of the Claude Lévi-Strauss Collected Works. Over the course of his life, the author has seen many paintings, listened to much music, and read many books. From the perspective of an anthropologist, he tells the story of how South American Indians create their unique artistic works through myths, thereby elucidating some fundamental principles of aesthetics, such as the aesthetic implications of painting content, techniques, and colors, and uses specific melodies and songs as examples to explain the beauty and expressiveness brought about by changes in tone. At the same time, he analyzes the aesthetic principles expounded in the works of Rousseau and Diderot, namely that beauty lies in the perception of various relationships. On this basis, from a structuralist perspective, he elucidates the relationship between discourse and music, sound and color, and so on. In summary, relying on his own experiences of seeing, hearing, and reading various artistic works, the author, within the framework of his grand structural anthropology, explains the fundamental principles and principles of philosophy and aesthetics from different angles, such as imitation, representation, reproduction, passion, and the definition of "beauty." Therefore, it has profound inspirational value for researchers and practitioners in fields such as aesthetics, art theory, and linguistics, with distinct features and academic significance.