Foucault, Michel

Foucault, Michel (1926–84), French historian, born in Poitiers and studied in Paris at the École Normale Supérieure before pursuing a varied academic career in Poland, Sweden, Tunisia, and France, culminating in his chair in the history of systems of thought at the Collège de France. His early work, notably Folie et déraison: histoire de la folie à l'âge classique (Madness and Civilization, 1961), Les Mots et les choses (The Order of Things, 1966), and L'Archéologie du savoir (The Archaeology of Knowledge, 1969), is devoted to the history of institutions (scientific, medical, penal, etc.) and the discourses on which their power is founded. It expresses a libertarian distrust of the ways in which modern institutions since the Enlightenment regulate knowledge and submit people to the control of ‘experts’. His later work includes Surveiller et punir (Discipline and Punish, 1975), which examines the history of punishment and imprisonment in this light, and an incomplete project for a history of sexuality. His visiting professorships in California furthered his strong influence on American historical and literary studies, notably the new historicism and the work of Said. See also structuralism and post-structuralism.