Claude Lévi-Strauss, Anthropologist, Dies at 100

Not a big fan of structuralism (or psycho-structuralism) myself, but this is sad news. Surely this marks the end of an era?

Claude Lévi-Strauss, the French anthropologist who transformed Western understanding of what was once called “primitive man” and who towered over the French intellectual scene in the 1960s and ’70s, has died at 100.
[...]
A powerful thinker, Mr. Lévi-Strauss was an avatar of “structuralism,” a school of thought in which universal “structures” were believed to underlie all human activity, giving shape to seemingly disparate cultures and creations. His work was a profound influence even on his critics, of whom there were many. There has been no comparable successor to him in France. And his writing — a mixture of the pedantic and the poetic, full of daring juxtapositions, intricate argument and elaborate metaphors — resembles little that had come before in anthropology.
[...]
His legacy is imposing. “Mythologiques,” his four-volume work about the structure of native mythology in the Americas, attempts nothing less than an interpretation of the world of culture and custom, shaped by analysis of several hundred myths of little-known tribes and traditions. The volumes — “The Raw and the Cooked,” “From Honey to Ashes,” “The Origin of Table Manners” and “The Naked Man,” published from 1964 to 1971 — challenge the reader with their complex interweaving of theme and detail.

The rest you can find here.

Call For Papers

JEP - European Journal of Psychoanalysis, a semiannual journal (www.psychomedia.it/jep), is planning a future issue on the topic

THE END

We welcome papers from a psychoanalytic perspective, although we will consider contributions from other fields that can enlighten the topic. We can consider papers submitted in French, Italian or German, however, once accepted for publication, it will be the responsibility of the author to provide the text of the paper in English.

We are especially interested in receiving contributions on:

- End as ethics
- End as a limit, and End as an aim
- Death, death-drive, Eros & Thanatos
- Emergence of death issues during the analytic cure
- Limits, borders, "terms" (both as words and time limits)
- Eschatological end

All submitted papers will be peer reviewed.

JEP editors
Sergio Benvenuto
Cristiana Cimino
Antonello Correale

Exhibit at the Freud Museum

MAT COLLISHAW - HYSTERIA

7 October - 13 December

Curated by James Putnam

HYSTERIA is an extraordinary exhibition of new works by British-born artist Mat Collishaw. The title relates to the print above Freud’s iconic psychoanalytic couch, depicting the French neurologist Jean Martin Charcot showing his students a woman in a hysterical fit. Charcot (1825-1893) used hypnotism to study hysteria and other abnormal mental conditions and he had a profound influence on the young Freud. Collishaw has made a new anamorphosis work inspired by this picture and a series of ghostly projections based on Charcot’s original photographic case studies.

In the room of Anna Freud, the founder of child psychoanalysis, he has installed a new zoetrope sculpture with animated figures of implike boys smashing eggs, spearing snails and tormenting butterflies. Both Freud and his daughter Anna investigated the development of cruelty in childhood, and its link to sexuality in children’s ‘beating phantasies’.

In Freud’s study Collishaw has installed a series of intriguing tree stump sculptures that incorporate record decks emitting evocative birdsongs. The ‘outside world’ enters Freud’s study, and in doing so alludes to theories of repression, loss and the nature of memory developed by Freud himself. The exhibition is completed by the enormous, beautiful and ultimately disturbing ‘insecticide’ photographs in the stairwell and balcony.

Mat Collishaw (b. Nottingham, 1966) lives and works in London and has exhibited widely internationally. In 1986-7 he attended Goldsmiths College alongside Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas and Tracey Emin, among others, participating in the now legendary shows Freeze (1989) and Sensation (1997). Collishaw has developed a distinctive practice using digitally modified photography and video often combining 19th century illusionistic devices with contemporary technologies. His work is characterized by appropriating imagery that is often shocking yet strangely beautiful.

HYSTERIA is the latest in the critically acclaimed ongoing series of Freud Museum exhibitions curated by James Putnam that have included projects by Sophie Calle, Sarah Lucas, Ellen Gallagher, Tim Noble & Sue Webster and Oliver Clegg. The exhibition also coincides with the launch of Collishaw’s new publication entitled ‘Insecticides’.

Freud Museum
20 Maresfield Gardens, London NW3 5SX
Tel: +44 (0)20 7435 2002
www.freud.org.uk

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