The Institute for Social Sciences holds classical lectures every semester, providing opportunities to reexamine foundational texts in the social sciences through the perspectives of distinguished scholars.
The 2nd Classical Lecture of the Spring 2025 semester will be conducted as follows, and we invite your active participation.
"Claude Lévi-Strauss' Tristes Tropiques: Mourning and Literary Achievement in the West and Non-West"
This book is a travelogue and ethnography, written by Lévi-Strauss based on his experiences exploring various indigenous societies along the Amazon River after joining the University of São Paulo as a professor in 1935. Nearly 20 years after these field investigations, he relied on his memory and notes to complete this extensive work in just five months.
Within this book, Lévi-Strauss presents detailed observations of four indigenous societies, his intellectual journey, the reasons behind his choice to become an anthropologist, the melancholy he felt as an ethnographer, and the seeds of his future academic developments. This lecture will focus on several key themes and explore the questions that Tristes Tropiques poses for us today.
Speaker: Prof. Hyun-jung Lee (Department of Anthropology, College of Social Sciences)
Date: Friday, May 16, 2025, 12:00–13:30
Venue: Seminar Room, Institute for Social Sciences (Building 16, Room M111)
* A light meal will be provided during the lecture.
Inquiries css@snu.ac.kr / 02-880-5475
* Institute for Social Sciences Development Fund:
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