Michel Foucault at 100: new books, a Collège de France exhibition and renewed debate on power
Michel Foucault was born in Poitiers on 15 October 1926. For the centenary, two previously unpublished texts appear, the Collège de France opens an exhibition on his work, and commentators link his ideas on surveillance and self-discipline to digital life.
A life in Poitiers and Paris
Michel Foucault was born Paul-Michel on 15 October 1926 in Poitiers, the eldest son of Paul-André Foucault, a surgeon and professor of anatomy, and Anne Malapert. He died in Paris on 25 June 1984, aged 57, of the effects of an HIV infection. His first book publication came in 1954, a study of mental illness and personality. Further works followed, including 'Wahnsinn und Gesellschaft' in 1961 and 'Überwachen und Strafen' in 1975. From 1976 he began a History of Sexuality planned in six volumes.
- Born Paul-Michel in Poitiers
- First book publication, a study of mental illness and personality
- 'Wahnsinn und Gesellschaft' published
- 'Überwachen und Strafen' published
- Begins the History of Sexuality series, planned in six volumes
- Dies in Paris, aged 57, from effects of HIV infection
- Centenary of his birth
Unpublished work and a Collège de France exhibition
Two previously unpublished texts appear for the centenary. Seuil publishes 'La Place de l'homme dans la pensée occidentale moderne', a course Foucault gave in Tunis in 1966 and 1967, in 324 pages at 27 euros. Flammarion publishes 'La Croisade des enfants', edited by Arianna Sforzini with Henri-Paul Fruchaud, in 304 pages. Gallimard publishes 'Iran, quand la terre tremble', his reportage from 1978 to 1979, in 400 pages at 24.50 euros, or 18 euros in digital form. The Collège de France is staging the exhibition 'Michel Foucault, une aventure intellectuelle', curated by the anthropologist Didier Fassin. Fassin also published lectures on Foucault with La Découverte under the title 'Ainsi pensait Michel Foucault'.
Lectures, method and Iran
Foucault's Wednesday lectures at the Collège de France in the 1970s and early 1980s drew crowds who queued for hours, and other rooms in the building received the sessions on screens, according to a memoir in DIE WELT. He appeared at ten o'clock, read for exactly one hour from the manuscript of his next book, and left through a side door without farewells. La Libre's interview describes his method, inspired by Nietzsche, of never taking the world as it is for granted. It cites madness, which was tolerated as marginal in the Middle Ages, confined in the classical age and treated as illness from the 19th century. On 14 October Le Monde published an essay by Christian Jambet of the Académie française on Foucault and Iran.
Power, surveillance and truth today
RP Online revisits his analysis of Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon, a prison with cells arranged in a ring around a central watchtower. Foucault argued that the possibility of constant observation leads people to control their own behaviour. The tower has since disappeared, but the gaze has multiplied through cameras, platforms, rankings and algorithms. Foucault specialist Frédéric Gros told RP Online that the person of the digital age is no longer only the object of surveillance but becomes its actor, and that digital societies develop mutual control. SRF argues that likes, rankings and fitness goals show power working without any command. It also notes that Foucault is often misread as denying truth, when his real interest is why people trust some voices over others. La Libre's interview cites French prison figures: one in two detainees in local prisons has no job, and three in four belong to ethnoracial minorities, while politicians and police officers are largely spared prison whatever their offences.
The unfinished archive
Der Standard describes the Foucault archive as still producing material. His death from AIDS in 1984 halted the completion of his research, yet hardly a year passes without unknown material leaving the archive. Der Standard describes his later manuscripts, around the project Sexualität und Wahrheit, as largely finished when he died.
