(***Note from Prof. Susan Rodgers: Please read these texts in the order set out below, since this will help you to understand structuralism in step-by-step fashion. We'll be following this order of texts in our class discussion. French structuralism is quite different from most American anthropology that you are already familiar with from your Holy Cross classes, so I'd advise you to take copious detailed notes of all these readings. As set below, first read Claude Levi-Strauss's classic statement on how to analyze myths in a way that avoids the pitfalls of functionalism (his "The Structural Study of Myth"). That will be followed by three essays by the great British anthropologist Edmund R. Leach, in which he details his (partial and temporary!) 'conversion' to Levi-Straussian structuralism once he had time to sit at a think tank at Stanford University in the early 1960s and really delve seriously into Levi-Strauss's scholarship. Study guide questions follow each entry here. We'll use these points as touchstones in class.)

Readings:
1. Claude Levi-Strauss, "The Structural Study of Myth." Pp. 206-231, Levi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology, 1963, Basic Books (ERes article)
a. According the Levi-Strauss, what were some of the flaws of the older, more psychological ways of doing the anthropology of religion? Why was human myth (and myth-making capacities) so thoroughly misunderstood, in these older schools of anthropological thought that Levi-Strauss is reacting against?
b. For Levi-Strauss, what is myth?
c. What does L-S mean by the langue aspect of human language? What does he mean by the parole aspect of human language? How does this distinction relate to the anthropological study of myth (I'll also explain this carefully in class).
d. What does L-S mean when he asserts (pg. 211), "The true constituent units of a myth are not the isolated relations but bundles of such relations, and it is only as bundle that these relations can be put to use and combined so as to produce a meaning." We'll work through examples in class.
e. Now, see L-S's very concrete example of a structural study of a myth (pp. 213 ff). He chooses the Oedipus myth for this. To do a structural analysis of this myth, L-S wants us to identify the 'basic units' of the myth? What are these? How do you find them? What does he mean by his image of the myth as "orchestra score"?
f. Work carefully through the various American Indian myths he then plunges into. What is L-S's method of analysis here? What is the nature of the 'hidden structures' of these myths, when L-S has finished analyzing them? What are the positive aspects of this approach? What are some possible flaws in this structuralist approach to myth?

2. Edmund R. Leach, "Levi-Strauss in the Garden of Eden: An Examination of Some Recent Developments in the Analysis of Myth," Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, Ser.II, vol. XXIII (1961), pp. 386-396 (ERes article)
This is a wonderful article to use as a guide to French structuralism, for it details Leach's dawning realization in the 1960s that there might really be something to a structuralist approach to myth after all (as a British social anthropologist he was initially quite skeptical of Levi-Strauss's work).
a. See important points in the preface to this article, re Leach's intellectual biography.
b. What does Leach have to say about the more traditional symbolist approaches to myth? About the equally traditional functionalist approaches to myth?
c. See Leach's excellent summary of L-S's structural approach to deciphering myth (p. 576-578). This is a good summary of L-S original article, actually.
d. Then, ask yourself: in his new guise as a would-be structuralist, what does Leach now do with the Genesis myth from the Old Testament? How does this myth work, in this light?
At this point in our class discussion, I'll tell you two myths (I'll recite these two stories out loud for you) and you'll try your hand at a structuralist analysis of each. One is a Hopi myth, the other is from an Inuit society in Greenland.

3. Edmund R. Leach, "Anthropological Aspects of Language: Animal Categories and Verbal Abuse," abridged version of 1964, from Eric H. Lenneberg, ed., New Directions in the Study of Language, pp. 23- 63 (ERes article)
This article shows Prof. Leach once again discovering that structuralism actually is quite insightful as a means for discovering hidden aspects of human mental life. Here he is trying to figure out, at base, Why in English-speaking cultures is it a very powerful and nasty thing when you say to an enemy of yours, "You son-of-a-bitch!" but really kind of silly if you yell at this same person, "You son-of-a-polar-bear!"
So, after reading this article, can you explain that difference, in how English works?
And: how do animal categories and verbal abuse work, in general (structural terms)?
How do these (structural) patterns relate to human rules about food and eating?
And (Leach is very ambitious in this article), how do these hidden structures of mind regarding animal categories, verbal abuse, and food taboos relate to ----- oh no!---marrying your sibling? That is, to human kinship systems?
Can you critically evaluate Leach's bold contentions, in this essentially methodological article?

4. Edmund R. Leach, 1966, "Ritualization in Man in Relation to Conceptual and Social Development," reprinted from Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B, no. 772, vol. 251, pp. 403-408 (ERes article)
This is a short but mind-blowing article about how information systems might have worked in the very distant human past, long before systems of literacy allowed humans to store crucially important information about humans/land/resources relationships in things like books and (now) computers.
In reading through this article, ask yourself: What does Leach feel is the basic role of ritual activity in pre-literate human societies? How did ritual once work in terms of information storage? In terms of 'reproducing a culture' over generational time? What is the nature of ritual communication? Can you apply this to the way that Catholic ritual works? In what ways is Leach's article here a structuralist exercise?

5. Claude Levi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology, 1963 (all are ERes articles):
Next, please read three chapters from Claude Levi-Strauss's Structural Anthropology, 1963. Pairs of you will have primary responsibility for leading the class discussion here for each of these rather challenging chapters. Everyone in the seminar should read all 3 articles, however. Some reader's guide points:

Ch. 1, "Introduction, History and Anthropology," pp. 1-27
What does L-S have to say here about the evolutionist approach to human societies? About the diffustionist approach? In his view, what would a true science of human culture really consist of? What type of comparative study is legitimate, for L-S? Why does he take this stand? What do you think of his contentions here?

Ch. 4, "Linguistics and Anthropology," pp. 67-80
What does L-S have to say here about the relationship between a language and a culture? Between language and culture? Between linguistics and anthropology?
What does he have to say about the Whorf hypothesis?
What does he have to say about the relationship between structure in language and structure in kinship systems? About structure in language and structure in systems of marriage rules?
What is one major take home message from this chapter?

Ch. 2, "Structural Analysis in Linguistics and in Anthropology," pp. 31-54
What sort of structural analysis does L-S want us to do in regard to such phenomena as joking relationships between certain kin? Respect and deference relationships between certain kin? How does L-S want anthropologists to study kinship? How does this set of recommendations relate to the scholarly field of linguistics?

6. Mary Douglas, "The Abominations of Leviticus," from M. Douglas, 1966, 1984, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, pp. 42-58, Routledge (ERes article)
Mary Douglas is yet another British social anthropologist who discovered the unexpected pleasures of structuralist analysis after reading Levi-Strauss. In this article (a structuralist approach to some of the seemingly odd taboo rules in the Old Testament), Douglas offers a Levi-Straussian explanation of why certain animals are seen as 'unclean' in Leviticus.
What are all of the steps of her argument here? Why are certain creatures deemed dirty and thus tabooed as food, in Leviticus, as seen through a structuralist lense? Why does Douglas reject a functionalist explanation here? Does her approach hold water, as a means of Biblical analysis, in your view?

7. Judith Becker, "Time and Tune in Java," in A.L. Becker and Aram Yengoyan, eds., The Imagination of Reality: Essays in Southeast Asian Coherence Systems, 1979, Ablex. Pp. 197-210 (ERes article)
So, what sort of structure is there in music? Specifically in Javanese gamelan music? How does that (in ethnomusicologist Judith Becker's view) relate to the structure of Javanese time keeping?
If Becker is correct about 'intersecting structures' what does that tell you in a larger sense about human thought?

Question for Response Paper #4: The Possibilities of Structural Analysis

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