Category Archives: Michel Foucault

Étienne Wolff and the biology of monsters – writing as a prisoner of war, Collège de France administrator, and the engagement with his work by Georges Canguilhem, Georges Bataille and Michel Foucault

Posted on September 21, 2025 by stuartelden

In exploring the histories of professors and their teaching at the Collège de France, I’ve often looked at correspondence between chairs, candidates and the administrator. Administrators are elected from within the professoriate and have quite a lot of power in … Continue reading →

Posted in Alexandre Koyré, Étienne Wolff, Canguilhem (book), Fernand Braudel, Georges Bataille, Georges Canguilhem, Michel Foucault, Sunday Histories, The Archaeology of Foucault, Uncategorized | 7 Comments

Berfrois articles – a complete archive of my pieces for this much-missed site

Posted on September 17, 2025 by stuartelden

Between 2011 and 2022 I wrote eleven pieces for the much-missed Berfrois site. Most were reviews of recent books. Although the site closed to new submissions in 2022, I thought the archive would be preserved. I was therefore disappointed to … Continue reading →

Posted in Ernst Kantorowicz, Foucault's Last Decade, Foucault: The Birth of Power, Georges Dumézil, Immanuel Kant, Michel Foucault, Shakespearean Territories, The Archaeology of Foucault, The Early Foucault, Uncategorized, William Shakespeare | Leave a comment

Pierre Bourdieu and Erwin Panofsky: Architecture, Scholasticism and the Concept of Habitus

Posted on September 14, 2025 by stuartelden

In 1967, Pierre Bourdieu translated Erwin Panofsky’s 1951 book Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism into French. The German-born Panofsky is best known for his work in art history, and for developing Aby Warburg’s distinction between iconography and iconology. He was teaching alternate semesters … Continue reading →

Posted in Emile Benveniste, Erwin Panofsky, Ferdinand de Saussure, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Sunday Histories | 5 Comments

Hegel 13/13 – Columbia University Centre for Contemporary Critical Thought series

Posted on September 13, 2025 by stuartelden

The seminars at the Columbia University Centre for Contemporary Critical Thought organised by Bernard Harcourt continue with Hegel 13/13. I was able to go to several of the Marx 13/13 series earlier this year, and the larger events are usually … Continue reading →

Posted in Bernard E. Harcourt, Friedrich Nietzsche, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Henri Lefebvre, Jean-Paul Sartre, Judith Butler, Karl Marx, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Arnault Skornicki, Michel Foucault, the State and the Social Sciences – Springer, September 2025

Posted on September 9, 2025 by stuartelden

Arnault Skornicki, Michel Foucault, the State and the Social Sciences – Springer, September 2025 based on La grande Soif de l’État. Michel Foucault avec les sciences sociales (2017) This book proposes an original reading of Foucault’s political thought. Far from … Continue reading →

Posted in Michel Foucault | 1 Comment

Maddalena Cerrato, Michel Foucault’s Practical Philosophy: A Critique of Subjectivation Processes – SUNY Press, May 2025 (paperback November) and New Books Network discussion

Posted on September 3, 2025 by stuartelden

Maddalena Cerrato, Michel Foucault’s Practical Philosophy: A Critique of Subjectivation Processes – SUNY Press, May 2025 (paperback November) New Books Network discussion with Morteza Hajizadeh – thanks to dmf for the link Offers a holistic approach to Michel Foucault’s thought, … Continue reading →

Posted in Michel Foucault, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Roman Jakobson’s two series of 1972 lectures at the Collège de France – dating, topics and archival traces, and his friendships with Claude Lévi-Strauss and Jacques Lacan

Posted on August 31, 2025 by stuartelden

In Stephen Rudy’s chronology of Roman Jakobson’s career, the entry for 1972 reads, in part:  Visiting Professor, Collège de France, Dec. […] Professeur d’état, Collège de France. Four lectures, Feb. 3-8. How many lectures did he give across the visits, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Alexandre Koyré, Antoine Meillet, Étienne Wolff, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Emile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil, Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault, Roman Jakobson, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Michael Behrent, Becoming Foucault – reviews by Stuart Elden, Ryan L. Allen and Philip Rosemann

Posted on August 29, 2025 by stuartelden

I review Michael Behrent’s Becoming Foucault: The Poitiers Years (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024) in The Journal of Modern History. This review was written and accepted well over a year ago, and it seems crazy to me how long journals … Continue reading →

Posted in Michel Foucault, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Berfrois articles – an archive of my pieces for this much-missed site

Posted on August 26, 2025 by stuartelden

Between 2011 and 2022 I wrote eleven pieces for the much-missed Berfrois site. Most were reviews of recent books. Although the site closed to new submissions in 2022, I thought the archive would be preserved. I was therefore disappointed to … Continue reading →

Posted in Ernst Kantorowicz, Foucault's Last Decade, Foucault: The Birth of Power, Georges Dumézil, Immanuel Kant, Michel Foucault, Shakespearean Territories, The Archaeology of Foucault, The Early Foucault, Uncategorized, William Shakespeare | Leave a comment

Michel Foucault’s early English translations – indications from the archives of the Georges Borchardt literary agency, the memoirs of André Schiffrin and the Susan Sontag connection

Posted on August 24, 2025 by stuartelden

Now it is almost automatic: a new book by Foucault in French is translated within a couple of years. The Collège de France courses, the Vrin series of critical editions of lecture courses and now other material, the fourth volume … Continue reading →

Posted in Georges Dumézil, Michel Foucault, Roger Caillois, Sunday Histories, The Archaeology of Foucault, Uncategorized | 5 Comments