The work of French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, who passed away in 2009, has influenced the ideas of the XXth century and still stands as a solid reference. Known as one of the founders of structuralism, he is also the author of a keystone work of anthropology: “The sad tropics” (« Tristes Tropiques », 1955), on his experience amongst Brazilian Indians.

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In 2009, the very year of his death, the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research implemented an award after the famous researcher. The “Claude Lévi-Strauss Award” (Prix Claude Lévi-Strauss) acknowledges the work of researchers who contribute to research in human and social sciences. The decisions regarding this award are entrusted to the “Academy of moral and political sciences” (“Académie des Sciences morales et politiques“), and an independant international jury has been empanelled so as to embody the diversity of the discipline. It is composed of nine researchers, five of them French and four of different nationalities, under the guidance of Professor Raymond Boudon.

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The first ever to receive the Claude Lévi-Strauss Award was Dan Sperber, French ethnologist, linguist and Research Director at the CNRS, Paris. He is the co-author of Relevance. Communication and Cognition (Blackwell 1995), and was rewarded in 2009 for his work at the crossroads of anthropology, philosophy, linguistics and psychology.

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The Claude Lévi-Strauss Award is open to any France based researcher. Submissions may be deposited here,  by June 18, 2010.

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The name of the 2010 award winner will be announced in November.

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For more information about Claude Lévi-Strauss : a biography, bibliography and press review of the several articles published upon his death are available in our October 30, 2009, article.