Conferência com Frédéric Keck
(LAS/Collège de France)
12/11/2024, 17h30
Sala 118 do Prédio das Ciências Sociais - Av. Prof. Luciano Gualberto, 315 - FFLCH/USP
Red parakeets, mad cows and animal reservoirs in the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss
Projeto USP-Cofecub "Coleções compartilhadas" (MAE-USP & Collège de France)
In this talk, I will present my reading of the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss through my ethnographic research on bird conservation in China and France. I will first analyse the famous statement « Bororo are Arara » which has circulated in 20th century anthropology and philosophy from the ethnography of Karl Von den Steinen in Xingu to Lucien Lévy-Bruhl’s books on « primitive mentality » to the detailed analyses of the Bororo society by Claude Lévi-Strauss and Christopher Crocker. I will show how the focus on bird feathers colors enabled Lévi-Strauss to solve an enigma that questioned the ontology of Amazonian societies between phenomenology, analytic philosophy and structuralism. I will then analyse Lévi-Strauss’s 1996 article on mad cow disease to show how they imply a concept of sentinel species which I have investigated in my research on avian influenza in China. I will finally offer a quick interpretation of Lévi-Strauss’ 1962 book, La pensée sauvage, through the concept of animal reservoir, which I introduce from the epidemiology of infection and orient toward the esthetic of conservation. I thus want to show the actuality of Lévi-Strauss’ thinking on signs to think about the semiotic of birds as sentinel species.
Link da transmissão:
Sala 118 do prédio de Ciências Sociais - Av. Prof. Luciano Gualberto, 315 - Cidade Universitária