Category Archives: Books

The Foucault centenary

Posted on October 15, 2026 by stuartelden

Today is the 100th anniversary of Michel Foucault’s birth. A lot of publications and events have been timed to coincide with this. Here are a few. Update 19 October 2026 – a few more here, including a remarkable video interview, … Continue reading →

Posted in Foucault's Last Decade, Foucault: The Birth of Power, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Sunday Histories, The Archaeology of Foucault, The Early Foucault, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Forty years since the death of Georges Dumézil and fifty since that of Émile Benveniste

Posted on October 11, 2026 by stuartelden

Today marks forty years since the death of Georges Dumézil (1898-1986); it was fifty years since the death of Émile Benveniste (1902-1976) a few days ago. Benveniste and Dumézil are the main focus of my very long manuscript Mapping Indo-European … Continue reading →

Posted in Emile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

The Archaeology of Foucault, Turkish translation by Duygu Yurttașen – Foucault’nun Arkeolojisi, Ayrinti, 2026

Posted on October 6, 2026 by stuartelden

My 2023 book The Archaeology of Foucault has been translated into Turkish – Foucault’nun Arkeolojisi, trans. Duygu Yurttașen, Istanbul: Ayrinti, 2026. The cover uses one of the images from Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s Le Carceri d’Invenzione. Some of the other books in my … Continue reading →

Posted in Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Foucault | Leave a comment

Michel Foucault, The Constitution of a Historical Transcendental in Hegel’s “Phenomenology of Spirit”: Graduate Thesis in Philosophy, 1949 – ed. Christophe Bouton, trans. Emilio E. Feijóo, University of Chicago Press, August 2027

Posted on September 23, 2026 by stuartelden

Michel Foucault, The Constitution of a Historical Transcendental in Hegel’s “Phenomenology of Spirit”: Graduate Thesis in Philosophy, 1949 – ed. Christophe Bouton, trans. Emilio E. Feijóo, University of Chicago Press, August 2027 No cover yet, but good to see this … Continue reading →

Posted in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Jean Hyppolite, Michel Foucault, Pierre Macherey, The Early Foucault | 3 Comments

Georges Dumézil’s journalism and his 1924 account of the Tutankhamun discovery 

Posted on September 20, 2026 by stuartelden

In November 1922, the British archaeologist Howard Carter first opened the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor. In March 1924, the French comparative mythologist Georges Dumézil wrote a short newspaper piece about the Egyptian pharaoh. … Continue reading →

Posted in Didier Eribon, Georges Dumézil, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Sunday Histories | 2 Comments

The Experience of the Demonic and Its Waning: Foucault, Madness and Witchcraft

Posted on September 6, 2026 by stuartelden

Throughout his career Foucault made many promises of books he planned to write, only some of which were fulfilled. In History of Madness in 1961 he said: We will show in another study how the experience of the demonic and its waning … Continue reading →

Posted in Colin Gordon, Fernand Braudel, Foucault: The Birth of Power, Michel Foucault, Sunday Histories, The Archaeology of Foucault | 5 Comments

Suzanne Bachelard – between Husserl’s Logic and the Philosophy of Science 

Posted on August 16, 2026 by stuartelden

Suzanne Bachelard (18 October 1919-3 November 2007) was the daughter of Gaston Bachelard. Her mother died in June 1920 when she was still an infant, and she was brought up by her father. She would sit in on his teaching … Continue reading →

Posted in Alexandre Koyré, Canguilhem (book), Edmund Husserl, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem, Jacques Derrida, Jean Cavaillès, Jean Hyppolite, Michel Foucault, Sunday Histories, Suzanne Bachelard | Leave a comment

Marie-Louise Sjoestedt, Louis Renou and a 1940 arrest by the Germans

Posted on July 26, 2026 by stuartelden

I’ve written about Marie-Louise Sjoestedt (1900-1940), an important scholar of Celtic languages and mythology, briefly before in this series. From various accounts, there are two pieces of information about her. After the death of her first husband Michel Jonval in 1935, Sjoestedt married … Continue reading →

Posted in Antoine Meillet, Emile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Pascale Drouet, Shakespeare and the Denial of Territory: Banishment, Abuse of Power and Strategies of Resistance – Manchester University Press, November 2021

Posted on July 14, 2026 by stuartelden

Pascale Drouet, Shakespeare and the Denial of Territory: Banishment, Abuse of Power and Strategies of Resistance – Manchester University Press, November 2021 I’m slow to notice this one, but looks interesting. My own Shakespearean Territories discusses related issues. This book … Continue reading →

Posted in Felix Guattari, Gilles Deleuze, Shakespearean Territories, Uncategorized, William Shakespeare | Leave a comment

Introducing Richard Wilson’s Shakespeare’s Fascist Followers – text of a talk at Garrick’s Temple to Shakespeare, 27 June 2026

Posted on July 5, 2026 by stuartelden

These are my opening remarks to a roundtable celebrating Richard Wilson’s book Shakespeare’s Fascist Followers: Modern Friends, at an event on Shakespeare and British Inter-war Philosophy (1918-1939) held at Garrick’s Temple to Shakespeare on 27 June 2026. A few lines … Continue reading →

Posted in Alexandre Kojève, Carl Schmitt, Carlo Ginzburg, Ernst Kantorowicz, Georges Bataille, Hannah Arendt, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Roger Caillois, Sunday Histories, T.S. Eliot, Uncategorized, Walter Benjamin, William Shakespeare | 2 Comments