ANTH 480 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Kinship Terminology, Incest Taboo, Marcel Mauss
25 Feb 2015
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Marcel mauss: deeply influenced by durkheim father of sociology, durkeim"snephew and student. L vi-strauss: essay of modal analysis of total social phenomena where gift exchange = phenomena of much greater whole/dynamic: view that mauss himself abnegated society as whole, holistic = never isolating from politics, law = but operate together. L vi argued strauss was a proto-structuralist what he saw useful from the text. Distinction is in the confusion derogatory term, cannot in any way be understood as commodities because inherent to them. If things could be mixed up with spirit permeable, infused with spirit: the thing itself has agency. Importance of proving concrete relationships between structures of meaning: the goal: discover general laws (universal, general) Books provides cleanliness of the structure, gives so many exceptions, always freedom of choice within structure: could never have complete free choice, or structure would break down. Not empirically verifiable, cannot find hard facts. September 18th: rubin (1975), ortner (1972), rodaldo (1980)
