Category Archives: Michel Foucault

The differences between the article and book versions of Jacques Derrida’s “Cogito and the History of Madness”

Posted on February 9, 2026 by stuartelden

There are lots of small changes made by Jacques Derrida to his critique of Foucault between the 1963 article “Cogito et histoire de la folie” and its republication in the 1967 book L’écriture et la différence, translated by Alan Bass as Writing and Difference. As … Continue reading →

Posted in Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Sunday Histories, The Archaeology of Foucault, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Foucault and his Critics – two minor notes on his exchanges with Jacques Derrida and J.M. Pelorson

Posted on February 8, 2026 by stuartelden

Two small things I’ve found or noticed recently which shed a little light on Foucault’s engagement with his critics. 1. Jacques Derrida I have discussed the Derrida-Foucault debate about Foucault’s History of Madness before, most fully in The Archaeology of Foucault (pp. 16-21). I’m … Continue reading →

Posted in Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Sunday Histories, The Archaeology of Foucault | 4 Comments

Clémence Ramnoux – Mythology, Psychology, Philosophy

Posted on January 11, 2026 by stuartelden

Clémence Ramnoux (1905-1997) was an important French scholar of ancient Greece. She worked mostly on the pre-Socratics, especially Heraclitus. Alongside Simone Pétrement she was one of the first two women who entered the philosophy programme of the École Normale Supérieure in 1927. Simone Weil … Continue reading →

Posted in Clémence Ramnoux, Emile Benveniste, Gaston Bachelard, Jacques Lacan, Jean Gottmann, Jean Hyppolite, Kostas Axelos, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Blanchot, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 6 Comments

Le thermomètre de Foucault, 9 Jan 2026, organised by Grégoire Chamayou, Frédéric Keck and Jean-Claude Monod

Posted on January 3, 2026 by stuartelden

Le thermomètre de Foucault, 9 Jan 2026, Journée d’étude organisée par Grégoire Chamayou (CNRS-ENS Paris), Frédéric Keck (CNRS-EHESS Paris) et Jean-Claude Monod (CNRS-ENS Paris). Dans sa généalogie des savoirs biopolitiques, Michel Foucault a beaucoup parlé des milieux mais peu du climat. Pourtant, … Continue reading →

Posted in Conferences, Michel Foucault | Leave a comment

My favourite academic books of 2025

Posted on January 1, 2026 by stuartelden

A list of academic books I liked published in 2025, or late 2024, or in paperback this year. Many of the books I read this year were published years ago; some of the 2025 ones I’ve bought or have been … Continue reading →

Posted in Alexandre Kojève, Books, Boundaries, Clémence Ramnoux, Ernst Kantorowicz, Erwin Panofsky, Gaston Bachelard, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Georges Bataille, Georges Canguilhem, Georges Dumézil, Gilles Deleuze, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michel Serres, Pierre Bourdieu, Theory, William Shakespeare | Leave a comment

My publications in 2025 – on Koyré, Foucault, Lefebvre and some reviews

Posted on December 31, 2025 by stuartelden

Most of this year was spent working on my very long manuscript Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth-Century France, which is coming together but has been hard work to reach this point. I have shared a few updates on the research and … Continue reading →

Posted in Adam David Morton, Alexandre Koyré, Emile Benveniste, Ernst Kantorowicz, Georges Dumézil, Henri Lefebvre, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Michel Foucault, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized, William Shakespeare | Leave a comment

Books received – Leshem, Arvidsson, Natter and Réfrégier, Pawelski

Posted on December 23, 2025 by stuartelden

Noam Leshem, Edges of Care: Living and Dying in No Man’s Land, the reedition of Stefan Arvidsson, Aryan Idols: Indo-European Mythology As Ideology and Science, Henri Natter and Adam Réfrégier, Five Years Behind Hitler’s Barbed Wire:A Diary of French Officers … Continue reading →

Posted in Boundaries, Michel Foucault | 1 Comment

On the Trail of a Misplaced Reference in Foucault’s Birth of the Clinic

Posted on December 21, 2025 by stuartelden

In Birth of the Clinic, Foucault quotes a passage which he incorrectly references to “S.A.D. Tissot, Avis aux gens de lettres sur leur santé, Lausanne, 1767, p. 28”. As part of the work for the new translation and edition of this text, we are … Continue reading →

Posted in Michel Foucault, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

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

Posted on December 17, 2025 by stuartelden

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

Posted on December 14, 2025 by stuartelden

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 | 1 Comment