Anyone who has heard of chiasmus is likely to think of it as no more than a piece of rhetorical playfulness, at times challenging, though useful for supplying a memorable sententious note or for performing a pirouette of syntax and thought. Going beyond traditional rhetoric, this volume is concerned with the possibility of using the figure of chiasmus to model a broad array of phenomena, from human relations to artistic creation. In the process, it provides the first book-length study not of chiasmus, the rhetorical figure, but of chiastic thought. The contributors are concerned with chiastic inversion and its place in social interactions, cultural creation, and more generally human thought and experience.They explore from a variety of angles what the unsettling logic of chiasmus (from the Greek meaning "cross-wise"), has to tell us about the world, human relations, cultural patterns, psychology, and artistic and poetic creation.

Boris Wiseman is Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Copenhagen University. He is the author of "Levi-Strauss Anthropology and Aesthetics" (2007) and has edited two collections of essays on Levi-Strauss, a special issue of "Les Temps modernes" (2004) and the "Cambridge Companion to Levi-Strauss" (2009) and co-edited a special issue of the journal "Paragraph" (2011) on French philosopher Claude Imbert. He has an interest in aesthetics and the senses and is currently working on the visual capture of movement, in particular in 19th century France.

Anthony Paul lectured on translation studies and English literature at the University of Amsterdam from 1972 to 2002. He is the author of "The Torture of the Mind: Macbeth, Tragedy and Chiasmus" (1992) and has published several works of literary fiction and translations. His latest novel, "More than a Dream, " has been published as an e-book (2013).

Claude Levi-Strauss is one of the major thinkers of the modern age. Regarded as a crucial figure in the development of structuralism, his writings are studied across a wide range of disciplines, including anthropology, philosophy and literary studies. The Cambridge Companion to Levi-Strauss presents a major reassessment of his work and influence. The fifteen specially-commissioned essays in this volume engage with the controversies that have surrounded his ideas, and they probe the concealed influences and cliches that have obscured a true understanding of his work. The contributors are experts drawn from a number of fields, demonstrating the durability and importance of Levi-Strauss's work in the academy. Written for students and researchers alike, these incisive, jargon-free essays will be essential reading for anybody who wishes to gain a deeper understanding of this important thinker.

In a wide-ranging 2007 study of Claude Levi-Strauss's aesthetic thought, Boris Wiseman demonstrates not only its centrality within his oeuvre but also the importance of Levi-Strauss for contemporary aesthetic enquiry. Reconstructing the internal logic of Levi-Strauss's thinking on aesthetics, and showing how anthropological and aesthetic ideas intertwine at the most elemental levels in the elaboration of his system of thought, Wiseman demonstrates that Levi-Strauss's aesthetic theory forms an integral part of his approach to Amerindian masks, body decoration and mythology. He reveals the significance of Levi-Strauss's anthropological analysis of an 'untamed' mode of thinking (pensee sauvage) at work in totemism, classification and myth-making for his conception of art and aesthetic experience. In this way, structural anthropology is shown to lead to ethnoaesthetics. Levi-Strauss, Anthropology and Aesthetics adopts a broad-ranging approach that combines the different perspectives of anthropology, philosophy, aesthetic theory and literary criticism into an unusual and imaginative whole.

Claude L vi-Strauss is one of the major thinkers of the modern age. Regarded as a crucial figure in the development of structuralism, his writings are studied across a wide range of disciplines, including anthropology, philosophy and literary studies. The Cambridge Companion to L vi-Strauss presents a major reassessment of his work and influence. The fifteen specially-commissioned essays in this volume engage with the controversies that have surrounded his ideas, and they probe the concealed influences and clich s that have obscured a true understanding of his work. The contributors are experts drawn from a number of fields, demonstrating the durability and importance of L vi-Strauss's work in the academy. Written for students and researchers alike, these incisive, jargon-free essays will be essential reading for anybody who wishes to gain a deeper understanding of this important thinker.

In a wide-ranging 2007 study of Claude Levi-Strauss's aesthetic thought, Boris Wiseman demonstrates not only its centrality within his oeuvre but also the importance of Levi-Strauss for contemporary aesthetic enquiry. Reconstructing the internal logic of Levi-Strauss's thinking on aesthetics, and showing how anthropological and aesthetic ideas intertwine at the most elemental levels in the elaboration of his system of thought, Wiseman demonstrates that Levi-Strauss's aesthetic theory forms an integral part of his approach to Amerindian masks, body decoration and mythology. He reveals the significance of Levi-Strauss's anthropological analysis of an 'untamed' mode of thinking (pensee sauvage) at work in totemism, classification and myth-making for his conception of art and aesthetic experience. In this way, structural anthropology is shown to lead to ethnoaesthetics. Levi-Strauss, Anthropology and Aesthetics adopts a broad-ranging approach that combines the different perspectives of anthropology, philosophy, aesthetic theory and literary criticism into an unusual and imaginative whole.

Introducing Levi-Strauss is a guide to the work of the great French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss (1908-2009). The book brilliantly traces the development and influence of Levi-Strauss' thought, from his early work on the function of the incest taboo to initiate an exchange of women between groups, to his identification of a timeless "wild" or "primitive" mode of thinking - a pensee sauvage - behind the processes of human culture. Accessibly written by Boris Wiseman and beautifully illustrated by Judy Groves, Introducing Levi-Strauss also explores the major contribution that Levi-Strauss made to contemporary aesthetic history - his work on American-Indian mythology provides a key insight into the way in which art itself comes into being. This is an essential introduction to a key thinker.