What is a book about when it is titled The elementary structures of kinship (Lévi-Strauss 1967 [1949])? For about thirty years, and during my graduate years at the University of Chicago, it was about “elementary structures” and we debated endlessly what that might mean. But I also took courses from David Schneider as he was elaborating his most famous book, A critique of the study of kinship (1984). He taught us that Lévi-Strauss’ book, ostensibly about “kinship,” was actually about NO THING that could be studied cross-culturally. Schneider’s book, as a version of the history of the near present often say, marked the end of the study of kinship in anthropology and the disappearance of the field as foundational to the discipline.