Michel Foucault had a long friendship with the comparative mythologist and linguist Georges Dumézil. As well as providing invaluable support for Foucault’s career, Dumézil was also important to Foucault intellectually, as Didier Eribon was the first to discuss in detail, both in his biography of Foucault and also in Michel Foucault et ses contemporains.
I’ve written about the relation between Foucault and Dumézil in a few places, including my books on Foucault, on sovereignty in the Handbook on Governmentality, “Foucault and Dumézil on Antiquity” in the Journal of the History of Ideas, and on his relation to two of Foucault’s other mentors in “Canguilhem, Dumézil, Hyppolite: Georges Canguilhem and his Contemporaries” in Revue internationale de philosophie.
There follows a chronological list of the letters, postcards and other notes between Georges Dumézil and Michel Foucault which I have seen in various archives. I did most of the work for my own research on Foucault and now on Dumézil, and thought it was possible someone else might find it helpful.
I’ve previously posted a similar list of the Dumézil-Mircea Eliade letters, many of which are published.
Foucault kept letters from Dumézil in different places, and they were deposited at the Bibliothèque nationale de France at various times, which explains why they are in different parts of his archives. Dumézil seems to have kept fewer letters, some of which are in his archives at the Collège de France, but he (or his archivists) often kept or organised correspondence with teaching materials for that academic year, or with material relating to his books, and I’m sure I will have missed some. A few of the dedications of Dumézil’s books to Foucault are dated, so I’ve included those which I’ve seen. Some of the letters from Foucault to Dumézil are in a private collection, not accessible to researchers.
While certainly an incomplete record, I’ve listed the letters I know about in order, adding a few years which seem likely or possible given other information – for example where they are sent from, or the content. A few I’ve been unable to date more specifically given limited information. Foucault’s handwriting can be unclear, and Dumézil’s is often very difficult to read, but I think what I’ve listed here is accurate.
The letters are especially revealing at the start, in the mid-1950s, when Dumézil first contacted Foucault to see if he would be interested in a post in Uppsala, combining teaching French literature and running cultural events at the Maison de France. Dumézil had held the same position twenty years before, and had been asked by them for a recommendation. Eribon discusses this in his biography of Foucault, and others, including David Macey in The Lives of Michel Foucault and my The Early Foucault have discussed it since. Eribon quotes passages from some other letters from Foucault to Dumézil, especially in the third French edition of his biography and in Michel Foucault et ses contemporains.
Many of the later letters are arranging times and places to meet, and don’t often go into much detail about their respective writing projects or ideas. They shift quickly from the formal ‘vous’ to the informal ‘tu’. They became extremely close – Foucault addresses Dumézil as ‘dear father’ and Dumézil Foucault as ‘my son’ and similar. There are not many letters from periods when they were both based in Paris – the bulk of the letters I’ve seen are from Foucault’s time abroad in Uppsala, Warsaw and Hamburg in the second half of the 1950s; or when Dumézil was away, often doing his linguistic fieldwork in Istanbul, or in visiting posts elsewhere. Foucault continued to live in Paris when he taught at Clermont-Ferrand, and was back in Paris regularly when teaching in Tunisia. Dumézil sent some letters from his second home, in the village of Vernon in Eure, Normandy.
Some of the late 1960s letters were when Dumézil was supporting Foucault’s attempt to get elected to the Collège de France, writing from Chicago to persuade a few people, and keeping a note of how he thought votes might go. There appear to be gaps and nothing after 1971, but this may simply be a result of where letters were kept, if they were retained at all, or using telephone more frequently. Dumézil travelled very little after 1972, and they lived less than two miles from each other in Paris.
There is also a handwritten copy in Foucault’s archive of Dumézil’s tribute, published in Le Nouvel observateur on 29 June 1984, a few days after Foucault’s death (NAF 28804). This mentions both the initial contact around the Uppsala post and the later support for his Collège de France election. I assume Dumézil must have shared this text with Daniel Defert, who put it with the correspondence. I don’t think this short text, reproduced as an image in Eribon’s biography of Foucault, and below, has been translated. Dumézil there describes their friendship as one which knew “neither shadow nor rupture” for thirty years.
Dumézil dedicates one of the essays added to Du mythe au roman in 1970 to Foucault, and agreed that his Entretiens avec Didier Eribon should be dedicated “to the memory of Michel Foucault”. It was published in 1987, the year after his own death.
Abbreviations
BEIN Michel Foucault library of presentation copies, Beinecke Library, Yale University
DMZ Fonds Georges Dumézil, Collège de France
NAF Nouvelles acquisitions françaises, Bibliothèque nationale de France
Letters
All sent from Paris or with place not noted, unless another place is stated.
Dumézil to Foucault, 15 October 1954, Bangor, Wales – NAF 28004; cited in Eribon, Michel Foucault et ses contemporains, 110-11.
Foucault to Dumézil, 22 October 1954 – private collection; cited in Eribon, Michel Foucault et ses contemporains, 111; enclosed cv part-cited on 112.
Dumézil to Foucault, 25 October 1954, Bangor – NAF 28004
Foucault to Dumézil, 29 October 1954 – private collection
Dumézil to Foucault, 12 November 1954, London – NAF 28004
Foucault to Dumézil, 7 December [1954] – private collection
Foucault to Dumézil, 21 December [1954] – private collection
Foucault to Dumézil, 1 January 1955 – private collection
Dumézil to Foucault, 3 January 1955 – NAF 28004
Dumézil to Foucault, 5 January 1955 – NAF 28804
Foucault to Dumézil, 11 January [1955] – private collection
Dumézil to Foucault, 8 February 1955 – NAF 28803, box 5, folder 3
Foucault to Dumézil, 27 February [1955] – private collection
Dumézil to Foucault, 11 March 1955 – NAF 28803, box 5, folder 3
Foucault to Dumézil, 12 March 1955, unsent/copy – previously in NAF 28803, box 5, folder 1
Dumézil to Foucault, 27 June 1955 – NAF 28803, box 5, folder 3
Dumézil to Foucault, 5 September 1955 – NAF 28804
Dumézil to Foucault, 25 September 1955, Istanbul – NAF 28804
Dumézil to Foucault, 25 April 1956, Bangor – NAF 29070, box 1
Dumézil to Foucault, 9 May 1956 – NAF 28804
Dumézil to Foucault, 12 May 1956 – NAF 29005, box 4
Dumézil to Foucault, 30 June 1956, Bangor – NAF 29070, box 1
Dumézil to Foucault, 3 September 1956, London – NAF 28804
Dumézil to Foucault, 8 September 1956, London – NAF 29005, box 4
Dumézil to Foucault, 26 September 1956, Oslo – NAF 29005, box 4
Dumézil to Foucault, jeudi soir, 27 September [1956?], Oslo – NAF 28804 [GD certainly gave a lecture in Oslo in 1956, 27 September 1956 was a Thursday, and the letter mentions visiting Uppsala]
Dumézil to Foucault, 22 October 1956, dedication in Déesses latins et mythes védiques, Bruxelles: Latomus, 1956 – BEIN 604
[Mme Madéleine?] Dumézil to Foucault, 29 November 1956 – NAF 29070, box 1
Dumézil to Foucault, 2 December 1956 – NAF 28804
Dumézil to Foucault, 15 December 1956 – NAF 28804
Dumézil to Foucault, 14 May 1957 – NAF 29005, box 4
Foucault to Dumézil, 29 May [1957] – private collection; part-cited in Eribon, Michel Foucault, 3rd edition, 147.
Dumézil to Foucault, 22 July 1957, Istanbul – NAF 28804
Dumézil to Foucault, 22 November 1957 – NAF 28804
Dumézil to Foucault, 23 November 1957 – NAF 28804
Dumézil to Foucault, 27 November 1957 – NAF 28804
Dumézil to Foucault, 20 January 1958 – NAF 28804
Foucault to Dumézil, 23 February [1958?] – private collection [mentions the death of Faral, Edmond Faral, administrator of the Collège de France, died on 8 February 1958, and Dumézil’s forthcoming 60th birthday]
Dumézil to Foucault, 10 March 1958 – NAF 29070, box 1
Dumézil to Foucault, 16 April 1958 – NAF 28804
Dumézil to Foucault, 4 May 1958 – NAF 28804
Dumézil to Foucault, 7 May 1958 – NAF 29005, box 4
Dumézil to Foucault, 10 May 1958 – NAF 28804
Dumézil to Foucault, 18 May 1958 – NAF 28804
Dumézil to Foucault, 22 June 1958, Istanbul – NAF 28804
Dumézil to Foucault, 1 Sept 1958, Vernon – NAF 29070, box 1
Dumézil to Foucault, 12 September 1958, Vernon – NAF 28804
Foucault to Dumézil, 14 September [1958], Uppsala – private collection
Dumézil to Foucault, 2 October 1958 – NAF 28804
Dumézil to Foucault, 4 May 1959 – NAF 28804
Foucault to Dumézil, 16 November [1958] – part-cited in Eribon, Michel Foucault, 3rd edition, 154.
Dumézil to Foucault, 18 November 1958 – NAF 28804
Dumézil to Foucault, 13 May 1959 – NAF 28804
Foucault to Dumézil, 18 June [1959] – DMZ 75, folder 25
Foucault to Dumézil, 18 May [1960?] – DMZ 75, folder 25
Foucault to Dumézil, [30 September 1961] – cited in Eribon, Michel Foucault et ses contemporains, 164-65
Foucault to Dumézil, 10 December [1962] – DMZ 75, folder 25
Dumézil to Foucault, 1 March 1963 – NAF 29070, box 1
Dumézil to Foucault, postcard from Istanbul, 26 May 1963 – NAF 28804
Dumézil to Foucault, 26 June 1963, Istanbul – NAF 28804
Dumézil to Foucault, 24 September 1964 – NAF 28804
Dumézil to Foucault, 15 November 1969, Chicago – NAF 28804
Dumézil to Foucault, 4 December 1969 – NAF 28804. This appears to have been sent with an additional page, dated 7 December 1969 – NAF 28804.
Dumézil to Foucault, postcard from Chicago, 31 December 1969 – NAF 28804
Dumézil to Foucault, postcard from Los Angeles, 5 March 1971 – NAF 28804
Dumézil to Foucault, April 1971, dedication in Mythe et épopée II, Gallimard, 1971 – BEIN 610
Dumézil to Foucault, 1 March 1977, dedication in Les Dieux souverains des Indo-Européens, 1977 – BEIN 605
Part-dated or Undated
Dumézil to Foucault, Copenhagen, jeudi midi – NAF 28804 [possibly 27 September 1956?]
Dumézil to Foucault, 7 January [no year] – NAF 28804
Dumézil to Foucault, Vernon, 11 April [no year] – NAF 28804
Dumézil to Foucault, 18 Sept [1959 or 1960?], Vernon – NAF 29070, box 1
Dumézil to Foucault, undated – NAF 28804
Foucault to Dumézil, 10 November [no year] – private collection
Foucault to Dumézil, 25 November [1955?], Uppsala – private collection
This is the 84th post of a weekly series, posted every Sunday throughout 2025, and continuing into a second year. The posts are short essays with indications of further reading and sources. Some, like this one, are also research resources like some other pieces on this site. The pieces are not as formal as something I’d try to publish more conventionally, but are hopefully worthwhile as short sketches of histories and ideas. They are usually tangential to my main writing focus, a home for spare parts, asides, dead-ends and possible futures. I hope there is some interest in them. They are provisional and suggestions are welcome. A few, usually shorter, pieces in a similar style have been posted mid-week. I wasn’t sure I’d keep to a weekly rhythm throughout 2026, but have ideas for at least a few more pieces.
The full chronological list of ‘Sunday histories’ is here, with a thematic ordering here.
