Category Archives: Michel Foucault

Christopher Penfield, Deleuze’s Foucault: A Virtual Force Ontology – Edinburgh University Press, April 2026

Christopher Penfield, Deleuze’s Foucault: A Virtual Force Ontology – Edinburgh University Press, April 2026 Thanks to dmf for the link – looks good but expensive, even for the e-book

Posted in Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault | 1 Comment

Boris Porshnev – from peasant revolts in 17th century France to cryptozoology and the quest for the Soviet Yeti

I first read the work of the Soviet historian Boris Fyodorovich Porshnev because of Michel Foucault. (His name is sometimes transliterated, especially in France, as Porchnev.) In his 1971-72 Collège de France lectures, Penal Theories and Institutions, Foucault spends the first … Continue reading

Posted in Boris Porshnev, Foucault: The Birth of Power, Michel Foucault, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Books received – Porshnev, Jameson, Coveney, de Menasce, Foucault, Medby, Chimisso, Blencowe, Braudel, Jakobson

A few books bought recently, mostly second-hand; Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious, Cristina Chimisso, Hélène Metzger, Historian and Historiographer of the Sciences, Ingrid Medley, Arctic State Identity and Claire Blencowe, Spirits of Extraction, in recompense for review work; and Foucault’s … Continue reading

Posted in Boris Porshnev, Fernand Braudel, Fredric Jameson, Ludwig Binswanger, Michel Foucault, Roman Jakobson, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Michel Foucault’s 24 May 1979 paper on hermaphrodites to the Arcadie conference

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 – … Continue reading

Posted in Foucault's Last Decade, Michel Foucault, Paul Veyne, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Foucault’s Multiple Plans for his History of Sexuality

Some years ago, Philippe Chevallier alerted me to the importance of the 1977 German translation of the first volume of Foucault’s History of Sexuality as Sexualität und Wahrheit: Der Wille zum Wissen. This text included a brief preface by Foucault … Continue reading

Posted in Foucault's Last Decade, Michel Foucault, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Foucault Studies 38 published, including a theme section on Foucault and Nietzsche, and a ‘Buffalo dossier’ (all open access)

Foucault Studies 38 is now published There are essays by Johanna Oksala and Philipp Kender, and a special section on Foucault’s reading of Nietzsche, with pieces by Orazio Irrera, Federico Testa, Emmanuel Salanskis, Daniele Lorenzini and Frédéric Porcher. This issue … Continue reading

Posted in Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, My Publications | Leave a comment

Jason Ananda Josephson Storm, The Genealogy of Genealogy: Nietzsche, Foucault, and the Coils of Critical History – University of Chicago Press, April 2026

Jason Ananda Josephson Storm, The Genealogy of Genealogy: Nietzsche, Foucault, and the Coils of Critical History – University of Chicago Press, April 2026 A daring reassessment of the critical method that reshaped the humanities—and an invitation to imagine new ways of doing … Continue reading

Posted in Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Indo-European Thought in Twentieth-Century France update 30 – archive work in Paris, Bern and Cambridge, MA, and Benveniste’s library

The formal end of the Leverhulme major research fellowship for the Indo-European thought project was at the end of September, but I have a no-cost extension until the end of January. This is invaluable, and is effectively to extend the grant for … Continue reading

Posted in Étienne Wolff, Claude Lévi-Strauss, David Harvey, Emile Benveniste, Ernst Kantorowicz, Erwin Panofsky, Georges Bataille, Georges Canguilhem, Georges Dumézil, Jacques Derrida, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Roman Jakobson, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Books received – Foucault, Duby, Stratford, Hage, Ramnoux

The newly published transcription of Foucault’s 1972 course in Buffalo, two autobiographical accounts by Georges Duby, Elaine Stratford’s remarkable book The Drowned: Elements of Loss and Repair, Ghassan Hage, Pierre Bourdieu’s Political Economy of Being, and the two volumes of … Continue reading

Posted in Clémence Ramnoux, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Sunday Histories | Leave a comment

Foucault’s Hermaphrodites – from Herculine Barbin to a planned volume of the History of Sexuality and the recently published manuscript

In May 1978, Foucault edited the memoir of a “hermaphrodite”, Herculine Barbin, for publication. In the dossier of documents appended to that text he says that “the question of strange destinies like these and which posed such problems for medicine … Continue reading

Posted in Étienne Wolff, Canguilhem (book), Foucault's Last Decade, Georges Canguilhem, Michel Foucault, Sunday Histories, The Archaeology of Foucault | 4 Comments