Review of the hardback: 'It is evident that there is great expertise in these pages, and even for the non-anthropologist, much material whose interest it would be hard to deny.' Modern Language Review

'Boris Wiseman, who was in charge of editing The Cambridge Companion to Lévi-Strauss (2009), has reexamined this 'work' in terms of the relation between anthropology and aesthetics, with an admirable capacity to reappraise texts thanks to the use of examples and comparisons.' Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

'Wiseman brings aesthetics back into anthropology as a philosophical dimension that returns to the romantic project of reconciling the intellect and the senses. This allows him to read together texts that Lévi-Strauss dedicated to art with proper production of anthropological science.' Frédéric Keck, Journal of the Royal Astronomical Institute

In a wide-ranging 2007 study of Claude Lévi-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 Lévi-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 Lévi-Strauss's aesthetic theory forms an integral part of his approach to Amerindian masks, body decoration and mythology. He reveals the significance of Lévi-Strauss's anthropological analysis of an 'untamed' mode of thinking (pensée 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. Lévi-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.
Les mer
Introduction: Ethnoaesthetics; 1. The reconciliation; 2. Art and the logic of sensible qualities; 3. The work of art as a system of signs; 4. Structuralism, symbolist poetics and abstract art; 5. The anthropologist as art critic; 6. Nature, culture, chance; 7. From myth to music; 8. Lévi-Strauss' mytho-poem; Conclusion: between concept and metaphor.
Les mer
A wide-ranging 2007 study of Claude Lévi-Strauss's aesthetic thought.

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780521123013
Publisert
2009-11-12
Utgiver
Vendor
Cambridge University Press
Vekt
390 gr
Høyde
229 mm
Bredde
152 mm
Dybde
15 mm
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
264

Forfatter

Biographical note

Boris Wiseman is Lecturer in French at the University of Durham.