Wild Thought
A New Translation of “La Pensée sauvage”
Translated by Jeffrey Mehlman and John Leavitt
328 pages
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20 halftones, 19 line drawings
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6 x 9
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© 2020
- Contents
- Review Quotes
Table of Contents
Contents
Translators’ Introduction
by John Leavitt
Prospectus for La Pensée sauvage, 1962
Preface
1 The Science of the Concrete
2 The Logic of Totemic Classifications
3 Systems of Transformation
4 Totem and Caste
5 Categories, Elements, Species, Numbers
6 Universalization and Particularization
7 The Individual as Species
8 Time Regained
9 History and Dialectic
Appendix: On the Wild Pansy
Bibliography
Notes to the Translation
Index
by John Leavitt
Prospectus for La Pensée sauvage, 1962
Preface
1 The Science of the Concrete
2 The Logic of Totemic Classifications
3 Systems of Transformation
4 Totem and Caste
5 Categories, Elements, Species, Numbers
6 Universalization and Particularization
7 The Individual as Species
8 Time Regained
9 History and Dialectic
Appendix: On the Wild Pansy
Bibliography
Notes to the Translation
Index
Review Quotes
The Bookseller
"An accessible new translation of the modern classic by the predominant theorist of structural anthropology, this tome displaced Western culture’s sense of its own superiority and showed the structural unity of human intellect."
The Prisma
"The new title points to what the book subverts, namely the assumption that societies described as ‘primitive’ are intellectually undeveloped. Lévi-Srauss shows, on the contrary, an equality in their compulsion to observe and record distinctions and patterns."
Tim Ingold, University of Aberdeen
“This new translation of Lévi-Strauss’s masterpiece is a revelation. To read Wild Thought is to marvel in the curiosity not only of its illustrious author but also of the countless people whose conceptual wizardry spills out onto the pages. In engaging and delightful prose, Wild Thought lets Anglophone readers at last relish the sheer joyousness and ingenuity of an unparalleled intellectual adventure.”
Eduardo Kohn, McGill University
“At last, a definitive and extensively annotated translation of Lévi-Strauss’s prescient La Pensée sauvage. Cultivating wild forms of thought is more important today than Lévi-Strauss could ever have imagined.”
Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, National Museum of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
“Wild Thought marks the turning point in Lévi-Strauss's long career, opening the way for his monumental analysis of the mythology of the Americas. But above all, it is the book that put anthropology at the forefront of the human sciences, by methodically dissolving the evolutionist and colonialist presuppositions of the whole metaphysical machinery of Reason, History, and Progress. This much-needed new English translation will reintroduce Lévi-Strauss's essential work for the next generation of scholars and expert anthropologists alike.”
Matthew Engelke, Columbia University
“Wild Thought is a fantastic rendering—a timely translation for anthropology’s most timeless mind.”
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Anthropology: Cultural and Social Anthropology
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