CEO Philip Marineau

After weeks crossing the high seas, Claude Levi-Strauss breathed in his first lungful of the New World, a perfume tinged with pepper or tobacco. The sensory awakening was the start of a journey that turned a young Parisian scholar into a founder of modern anthropology. On that 1930s trip that took him across the Atlantic to Latin America, Levi-Strauss' scholarly upbringing guided him on a methodical search for humankind's inner workings as he met tribes in Brazil's jungles. His studies would later electrify _and divide — the intellectual world with the idea that cultures share similarities underlying their myths and patterns of behavior. Levi-Strauss' ... Read Full Story

Levi Strauss & Co. continued more than 25 years of pioneering leadership on HIV/AIDS by commemorating World AIDS Day 2009 with support from pioneering artists around the world. The company launched a global web site that spotlights work of global artists’ interpretation of World AIDS Day and encourages consumers to “know your status” in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The Levi Strauss Foundation also announced $2 million in grants in 2009 for organizations engaging in groundbreaking work on the pandemic. Read Full Story

French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, who helped shape Western thinking about human civilisation, has died at the age of 100, his publisher and colleagues said Tuesday. Levi-Strauss died on Friday and was buried at a private service in the Breton village of Lignerolles, where had a house, senior colleagues said. "Two years ago he broke his hip and he had been very tired ever since. He died at a grand old age," said Philippe Desacola, his successor as head of the social anthropology laboratory at the College of France research institute. Trained as a philosopher, Levi-Strauss shot to prominence with his 1955 book "Tristes Tropiques" ... Read Full Story

PARIS (Reuters) - French intellectual Claude Levi-Strauss, the founder of structural anthropology, has died at the age of 100, his publishing house Plon said on Tuesday. Levi-Strauss, who was known to a wider public thanks to his 1955 memoir and masterpiece, "Tristes Tropiques," died on Saturday. He would have turned 101 on November 28. "He was France's greatest scientist," said writer Jean d'Ormesson, fellow member of the Academie Francaise which brings together the elite of the country's intellectual establishment. A brilliant student who excelled at geology, law and philosophy, Levi-Strauss was posted to Brazil as a professor in 1935. It was there that he ... Read Full Story

French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, whose work deeply influenced Western thinking about civilisation, has died at the age of 100, his publisher Plon said Tuesday. Levi-Strauss died overnight Saturday to Sunday, according to fellow academics at the school of social sciences. Trained as a philosopher, Levi-Strauss shot to prominence with his 1955 book "Tristes Tropiques", a haunting account of his travels and studies in the Amazon basin that is considered one of the 20th century's major works. He was a leading proponent of structuralism, which sought to uncover the hidden, unconscious or primitive patterns of thought believed to determine the outer reality of human culture ... Read Full Story