Foucault, Michel (1926–84)

THE FRENCH PHILOSOPHER Michel Foucault was one of the leading intellectuals of the 20th century, [Page 387]whose investigations on the mechanics of power and the history of sexuality have shown how discourse shapes perception. Throughout his studies, Foucault focused on those people and practices that are considered marginal in Western societies. In them, he found keys to understanding how the upper classes, the scientific community, and the social elites exercise their power. His thought has thus challenged the very concept of what is “normal” and pointed to the constraining force of historical contexts to limit human freedom.

While Foucault's legacy is primarily relevant for gay and lesbian studies, his focus on marginality obviously touches on the issue of poverty and challenges the conventional ways in which it has been conceived and represented. His studies on the mechanisms of power have illustrated how the ruling classes dominate and police the poor and other “deviants.” Works such as Madness and Civilization and Discipline and Punish had an important impact on the social sciences, as Foucault critiqued the origins of institutions such as prisons, hospitals, and asylums.

The life of the French philosopher has attracted as much attention as his works. Some biographers have located in Foucault's own consciousness of being a marginal subject the inspiration for his most fascinating insights. Foucault was born into that traditional French bourgeoisie that he would later target in his works. Born in Poitiers in 1926, the young Michel received a superb education thanks to his family's financial wealth (his father was a successful surgeon as was his grandfather). He attended the Jesuit college Saint Stanislaus in Poitiers and then entered the celebrated Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris in 1946. There he became a favorite student of Jean Hyppolite, an important existentialist.

Existentialism was a clear influence on Foucault, stimulating him to challenge the way we apprehend and know things. Yet Foucault was later associated with intellectuals such as Claude Lévi-Strauss, Roland Barthes, and Jacques Lacan, who reacted against Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialism. Foucault's university years were also marked by a severe nervous breakdown and a suicide attempt, which some biographers link to his guilt for his growing awareness of his homosexuality.

In the early 1950s, Foucault was also briefly a member of the Communist Party, which he left for his concerns over Stalinist purges. After graduating in 1952, Foucault started a career characterized by constant movement and prolonged periods of time spent abroad. He taught at the University of Lille and was then cultural attaché in Sweden, Poland, and Germany. He returned to France in the 1960s to teach at the University of Clermont-Ferrand, where he met his life partner, Daniel Defert. While at Clermont-Ferrand, Foucault wrote his early monographs, including Folie et déraison: Histoire de la folie à l’âge classique (1961, Madness and Civilization). However, it was not until the publication of Les mots et les choses (1966, The Order of Things) that Foucault started to attract wide international attention. After two years spent at the University of Tunis, Foucault returned to Paris, first as director of the philosophy department at the University of Paris, Vincennes, and then as chair of The History of Systems of Thought at the Collège de France, one of the coun-try's most prestigious cultural institutions.

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