Levi-Strauss Anthropology and Aesthetics

In A Wide-Ranging 2007 Study Of Claude Lvi-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 Lvi-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 Lvi-Strauss''S Aesthetic Theory Forms An Integral Part Of His Approach To Amerindian Masks Body Decoration And Mythology. He Reveals The Significance Of Lvi-Strauss''S Anthropological Analysis Of An ''Untamed'' Mode Of Thinking (Pense 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. Lvi-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.