Monthly Archives January 2012

Levi-Strauss on Totemism

“If we talk about ‘totemism’ any more, it will be in ignorance of Levi-Strauss or in spite of him.” - Roger Poole, introduction to Penguin edition of Totemism (1962)
The idea that Levi-Strauss somehow discredited or dissolved the concept of totemism is exaggerated.
Levi-Strauss shows that there is no workable formal definition of totemism, since the things […]