Claude Lévi-Strauss (French: Claude Lévi-Strauss); (November 28, 1908 - October 30, 2009), French sociologist. Lévi-Strauss began his formation by studying philosophy, but these arbitrary abstract theories far from social reality soon disappointed him, so he traveled to Brazil, where he taught sociology and discovered the works of American anthropologists (unknown in Europe at the time) such as Boas, Cropper and Louie. After returning to France in 1948, he presented his thesis on the theoretical problems of kinship. He was elected professor at the Collège de France in 1959 and held the chair of social anthropology that had been held by Marcel Mauss before him. The work and science of Lévi-Strauss had the greatest impact in the field of anthropology and ethnological field investigation.