Claude Lévi-Strauss (28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist, born in Belgium to French-Jewish parents living in Bruxelles, whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social Anthropology at the Collège de France between 1959 and 1982, was elected a member of the Académie française in 1973 and was a member of the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris. He received numerous honors from universities and institutions throughout the world.