An earlier piece discussed the recently published Les Hermaphrodites, a manuscript by Foucault from the mid-late 1970s, at one point destined for a volume of the History of Sexuality. I also outlined the different plans Foucault discussed for the structure of the History of Sexuality series – the (at least) three interim versions between the initially announced one in 1976 and the final plan at the time of his 1984 death. In both of these posts, I mentioned Foucault’s 1979 paper to the Arcadie conference, in which he presented on the topic of hermaphrodites.

I made the claim that an unpublished text quoted by Arianna Sforzini in her editorial introduction to Les Hermaphrodites, also in the Foucault archives, was Foucault’s presentation to this conference. Having now seen the archival material myself, I am more confident in that claim. Here’s what I think we know about this event and Foucault’s talk.

The conference took place between 24-27 May 1979, organised to celebrate 25 years of the Arcadie journal. Arcadie described itself as a homophile journal. The editor André Baudry opened proceedings, and the first two speakers were Paul Veyne and Michel Foucault. In issue 307-308 of the journal, Christian Gury wrote a brief report on the event. After discussing Veyne’s paper, Gury summarises and in places quotes Foucault. 

Michel Foucault, taking up the baton, asks: how did we move from one model to another, and how is it today that the separation is between masculine and feminine? The holder of the Chair of the History of Ideas [History of Systems of Thought] at the Collège de France approaches the issue of sexual identity by studying the marginal case of hermaphroditism, a phenomenon in which the Church, medicine and Parliament raised the question of the true sex. From anatomy, we came to consider sensibility, the nature of desire. The notion of homosexuality, defined by extension from the old form of hermaphroditism as a disturbance of “the law of identification of the individual with their sex” made it possible to place those who deviated from the law outside of society. “The problem”, concludes Michel Foucault, “is to free pleasure from this law. It is important to understand that no legal systematisation can confine sex. Pleasure is something which passes from one individual to another, it is not a secretion of identity. Because pleasure has no passport, no identity card” (“Le congrès au fils des jours”, pp. 505-6).

The conference proceedings were published later in 1979 as Le Regard des autres. Foucault’s paper is not included, for which the editor apologises. He adds that he “is currently working on an important book about the ideas he presented to the Congress in his speech” (p. 25). In place of his paper, the proceedings reproduces Gury’s earlier summary. The editor adds that Foucault’s text would appear in a subsequent issue of the journal, and that owners of the proceedings would be given an offprint of the text. 

Foucault’s conference paper was developed into the introduction to the English translation of the Herculine Barbin memoir, where it is dated to January 1980 (p. xvii). A slightly expanded version of this text was then published in French in the Arcadie journal in November that year. This text was reprinted in Dits et écrits in 1994, with the differences between the Introduction and the Arcadie versions indicated. The longer Arcadie version has not been translated into English.

The text which Sforzini quotes in her editorial introduction to Les Hermaphrodites is in the Foucault archives. Folder 7 of box 82 of the main Foucault fonds, NAF 28730, includes six handwritten pages, which include the passages partially quoted by Sforzini.

In its form it is similar to other lectures by Foucault – some phrases, some words, a structure around which he could improvise at the event itself. If you compare the notes in the published versions of Foucault’s first two courses at the Collège de France to the later volumes, which transcribe recordings, you can see the difference. There are places where the manuscript matches very closely to Gury’s report from the conference. As the basis for an oral presentation, it is not surprising that an audience member’s recollection of what Foucault said differs slightly from what was written.

I do think it’s a shame the full text wasn’t transcribed in full for Les Hermaphrodites, which is where it would have found its most natural home. Although in parts it is very abbreviated, it is not dissimilar to other texts which have been transcribed in this form.

Didier Eribon’s report of the Arcadie conference (Michel Foucault et ses contemporains, pp. 271-72), sent me first to the conference proceedings and from there to the initial report by Gury. Without those indications, I would not have known what I was looking at. Sforzini’s partial transcription helped me to join up these different bits of evidence. Neither, though, make the claim that this manuscript was the text used by Foucault for the Arcadie conference.

References

André Baudry, Le Regard des autres: Actes du congrès international [24 au 27 mai 1979], Paris: Arcadie, 1979.

Christian Gury, “Le congrès au fils des jours”, Arcadie: Movement homophile de France 307-308, 1979, 505-10.

Didier Eribon, Michel Foucault et ses contemporains, Paris: Fayard, 1994. 

Michel Foucault, “Introduction”, in Herculine Barbin, Being the Recently Discovered Memoirs of a Nineteenth-century French Hermaphrodite, trans. Richard McDougall, Brighton: Harvester, 1980.

Michel Foucault, “Le vrai sexe”, Arcadie 323, 1980, 617-25; reprinted in Dits et écrits, eds. Daniel Defert and François Ewald, Paris: Gallimard, four volumes, 1994, Vol IV, 115-23.

Michel Foucault, Les Hermaphrodites, eds. Henri-Paul Fruchaud and Ariana Sforzini, Paris: Gallimard, 2025.

Arianna Sforzini, “Préface: Le chantier « hermaphrodite »”, in Michel Foucault, Les Hermaphrodites, eds. Henri-Paul Fruchaud and Ariana Sforzini, Paris: Gallimard, 2025, 7-39.

Archives

Fonds Michel Foucault, NAF 28730, Bibliothèque nationale de France

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This note is in the same style as the ‘Sunday histories‘ posts, though its more minor status means I’ve posted it mid-week.