Foucault’s Collaborative Projects

Some of Foucault’s collaborative projects are well-known – the I, Pierre Rivière collection; the Herculine Barbin memoir; Le désordre des familles with Arlette Farge; and the posthumous Technologies of the Self volume from the University of Vermont. These are either available in English, or in the process of being translated (see here).

These are the bibliographic details of other collaborative projects Foucault was involved with – either as contributor, research team leader or enabler. Some of these developed from Foucault’s Collège de France seminars, which ran in parallel to his better-known lecture courses. The seminars are listed here.

1. Généalogie du capital

Généalogie du capital: 1 Les équipements du pouvoir villes, territoires et équipements collectifs, Recherches, No 13, December 1973

• Reissued as François Fourquet and Lion Murard, Les équipements du pouvoir, Paris: Union Générales d’Éditions 10/18, 1976
• Foucault’s contributions, in a discussion with Fourquet and Guattari, and with Deleuze and Guattari, appear in Dits et écrits as texts 129 and 130; they are translated (in reverse order) as “Equipments of Power” in Foucault: Live, pp. 105-112.

See also Généalogie du capital 2: L’idéal historique, Recherches, No 14, January 1974

• Reissued as François Fourquet, L’idéal historique, Paris: Union Générales d’Éditions 10/18, 1976
• This was originally intended as a conclusion to Les équipements du pouvoir and grew to the length of a short volume on its own (130/185 pp.).

This was a project under the auspices of CERFI (Centre d’études, de recherches et de formation institutionnelles), set up by Félix Guattari. François Fourquet was the manager of the clinic at La Borde. Recherches was their house journal; the later studies sometimes appear as their book imprint Encres. Most issues of Recherches are available to buy online. On CERFI, see François Fourquet, L’accumulation du pouvoir, ou le désir d’État: CERFI, 1970-1981, Recherches, No 46, 1982; Site, No 2, 2002, http://www.sitemagazine.net/issues/2_2002; Liane Mozère, “Foucault et le CERFI : instantanés et actualité”, Le portique, No 13-14, 2002, http://leportique.revues.org/642?lang=en; and François Dosse, Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guatarri: Intersecting Lives, translated by Deborah Glassman, New York: Columbia University Press, 2010, Ch. 15. (Mozère ran the Recherches journal between 1967 and 1970.)

Update Nov 2018: An unpublished piece by Foucault from 1974, “Émergence des equipment collectifs“, has recently been discovered and published online, with an Introduction by Philippe Chevallier.

2. Généalogie des équipements de normalisation

Généalogie des équipements de normalisation: Les équipements sanitaires, sous la direction de Michel Foucault, Fontenay-sous-Bois: CERFI, 1976

This volume sometimes appears listed in catalogues as Généalogie des équipements collectifs [2] Les équipements sanitaires. It comprises three parts:

1. L’institution hospitalière au XVIII^e siècle, sous la direction de Michel Foucault (pp. 1-79)
2. Les équipements psychiatriques au XIX^e siècle, Gaëtane Lamarche-Vadel et Georges Préli (pp. 83-205)
3. Histoire de la psychiatrie de secteur, François Fourquet and Lion Murard (pp. 209-440)

Part 3 was also issued in much longer form as Psychiatrie: le secteur impossible? Recherches, No 17, 1975 (600+ pp.) and in an abridged second edition as François Fourquet and Lion Murard, Histoire de la psychiatrie de secteur, Paris: Recherches, 1980 (338 pp.).

Part 1 is the only one directly involving Foucault. It comprises:

• La politique de la santé au XVIII^e siècle, pp. 1-11 (Michel Foucault)
• Chapitre I: Hôpitaux et maladies, pp. 13-24
• Chapitre II: Le fonctionnement de l’hôpital, pp. 25-39
• Chapitre III: L’hygiène publique ou la médicalisation de l’espace urbain, pp. 41-72
• Chapitre IV: La ville et la santé, pp. 73-79

Only the first of these pieces is signed. No other author information is provided, except that the prefatory note to the volume as a whole notes that it was undertaken by ‘a working group gathered around Michel Foucault’.

The first chapter is reprinted in Michel Foucault, Blandine Barrett Kriegel, Anne Thalamy, François Beguin, Bruno Fortier, Les machines à guérir: Aux origins de l’hôpital moderne; dossiers et documents, Paris: L’institut de l’environnement, 1976, pp. 11-21. See next entry.

See also some additional discussion by me here.

There are two other related volumes, all funded by grant 73 01 503:

• Généalogie des équipements collectifs [1] L’école primaire – Anne Querrien, Fontenay-sous-Bois: CERFI, 1975
• Généalogie des équipements collectifs [3] Histoire des services collectifs dans la comptabilité nationale – François Fourquet, Fontenay-sous-Bois: CERFI, 1976

Querrien was a former doctoral student of Henri Lefebvre’s sociology programme at Nanterre, and general secretary of CERFI. This study also appeared as L’ensaignement 1. L’école primaire, Recherches no 23, 1976; and its themes are reprised as L’école mutuelle: Une pédagogie trop efficace? Paris: Empêcheurs de Penser en Rond, 2005, with a preface by Isabelle Stengers.

Fourquet’s study is related to his later Les Comptes de la puissance: histoire de la comptabilité nationale et du plan, Paris: Encres/Recherches, 1980.

There were other related studies:

• La programmation des équipements collectifs dans les villes nouvelles (Les équipement d’Hygiene mentale), CERFI, May 1972
• François Fourquet, Christian Hennion, Herve Maury, Liane Mozere, Anne Querrien, Lion Murart [sic], Généalogie des équipements collectifs : première synthèse, CERFI, 1973

3. Les machines à guérir: Aux origins de l’hôpital moderne

Michel Foucault, Blandine Barret Kriegel, Anne Thalamy, François Beguin, Bruno Fortier, Les machines à guérir: Aux origins de l’hôpital moderne; dossiers et documents, Paris: L’institut de l’environnement, 1976.

This book says it derives from the CERFI funded research, but also from a separate research grant (CORDA/DGRST no 73 005 002 01, “La politique de l’espace parisien (à la fin de l’Ancien Régime)”), which was published as Bruno Fortier (ed.) La politique de l’espace parisien (à la fin de l’Ancien Régime), Paris: CORDA, 1975.

The other contributors to La politique de l’espace parisien were Blandine Barret-Kriegel, François Beguin, Daniel Friedmann, and Alain Monchablon. La politique de l’espace parisien notes that it was completed between November 1973 and November 1973, and gives a different grant number and title – 73 73 009 002 02 75 01, “L’espace Institutionnel de l’Architecture”. CORDA is Comité de la recherche et du développement en architecture; DGRST is Délégation Générale à la Recherche Scientifique et Technologique.

Contents – Les machines à guérir 1976 edition

Elements d’analyse

• Michel Foucault, ‘La politique de la santé au XVIII^e siècle’
• Blandine Barret-Kriegel, ‘L’hôpital comme équipement’
• Anne Thalamy, ‘La médicalisation de l’hôpital’
• François Beguin, ‘La machine à guérir’
• Bruno Fortier, ‘Architecture de l’hôpital’

L’affaire des hôpitaux

• Un essai de chronologie

Le dossier

• Les projets
• L’enquête
• Les acteurs

Orientation bibliographique

Foucault’s contribution appears in Dits et écrits as text 168. It is translated by Colin Gordon as ‘The Politics of Health in the Eighteenth Century’ in Power/Knowledge and is reprinted in The Foucault Reader, Essential Works III: Power, and The Essential Foucault.

A substantially revised version of the book appeared as Michel Foucault, Blandine Barret Kriegel, Anne Thalamy, François Beguin, Bruno Fortier, Les machines à guérir: Aux origins de l’hôpital moderne, Bruxelles: Pierre Mardaga, 1979.

Contents – Les machines à guérir 1979 edition

Elements d’analyse

• Michel Foucault, ‘La politique de la santé au XVIII^e siècle’
• Blandine Barret-Kriegel, ‘L’hôpital comme équipement’
• Anne Thalamy, ‘La médicalisation de l’hôpital’
• François Beguin, ‘La machine à guérir’
• Bruno Fortier, ‘Le camp et la forteresse inversée’

L’affaire des hôpitaux

• Un essai de chronologie

Le dossier

• L’enquête
• L’équipement
• Les projets
• Les acteurs

Orientation bibliographique

Foucault’s revised chapter (pp. 7-18) appears in Dits et écrits as text 257, and was translated in Foucault Studies 18 by Richard Lynch (open access here). The rest of the volume is also different from the 1976 edition – three chapters are comprehensively revised with additions and subtractions; and Fortier’s essay is entirely different, with a new title. There are also differences in the dossier and plates between the two editions.

4. Politiques de l’habitat (1800-1850)

Politiques de l’habitat (1800-1850), étude réalisée par J.M. Alliaume, B. Barrett-Kriegel, F. Beguin, D. Ranciere, A. Thalamy, sous la direction de M. Foucault, CORDA, 1977

The title page bears the inscription ‘Collège de France, Equipe de Recherches de la Chaire d’Histoire des Systèmes de Pensée’.

A brief note says the research was conducted between September 1975 and May 1977, funded by DGRST-CORDA research contract 75.73.030.00.202.75.01, ‘Apparition de l’Habitat dans la Pensée et la Pratique Architecturale aux XVIII^e et XIX^e siècles”.

The only unsigned text is a short ‘Avant-propos’ (pp. 3-4), which may or may not have been written by Foucault.

The remaining chapters are:

• Anne Thalamy, ‘Réflexions sur la notion d’habitat aux XVIII et XIXe siècles’
• Blandine Barret-Kriegel, ‘Les demeures de la misère. Le cholera-morbus et l’émergemce de l’”Habitat”’
• Jean-Marie Alliaume, ‘Anatomie des discours de réforme’
• Danielle Rancière, ‘“La loi du 13 juillet 1850 sur les lodgements insalubres” Les philanthropes et le problème insoluble de l’Habitat du pauvre’
• François Béguin, ‘Savoirs de la ville et de la maison au débat du XIXe siècle’

5. L’impossible prison

L’impossible prison: Recherches sur le système pénitentiare au XIX^e siècle réunies par Michelle Perrot: Débat avec Michel Foucault, Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1980.

Contains three texts by Foucault – “La poussière et le nuage” (a response to a piece by Jacques Léonard); “Table ronde du 20 mai 1978” (a discussion with a range of historians); and a brief “Postface”. These appear in Dits et écrits as texts 277, 278, and 279. Only the second is available in English – translated by Colin Gordon as “Questions of Method” in The Foucault Effect, Power and The Essential Foucault; and “The Impossible Prison” in Foucault Live.

6. Génealogie de la défense sociale en Belgique (1880-1914)

Françoise Tulkens (eds.), Génealogie de la défense sociale en Belgique (1880-1914), Bruxelles: E. Story-Scientia, 1988.

This developed from research undertaken in Foucault’s seminar at Louvain in 1981 at the time of the Wrong-Doing, Truth-Telling lectures. There is no text by Foucault in the published book Génealogie de la défense sociale en Belgique. On this seminar see Françoise Tulkens, “Contributions au séminaire «Généalogie de la défense sociale en Belgique (1880-1914)»”, CRID&P, No 5/1, 1985, pp. 1-12 and “Généalogie de la défense sociale en Belgique (1880-1914)”, Actes, No 54, 1986, pp. 38-41.

7. New Arts of Government in the Great War and Post-War Period

This was work planned with Foucault’s 1983 seminar at University of California, Berkeley, with the idea that the work would be continued in fall 1984 when Foucault was back in Berkeley, but due to his death in June 1984 the project did not develop.

The photograph is of Foucault with this seminar – Kotkin and Gandal are to Foucault’s right and left. For details of all the people in the photograph, see here.

Some indications of how the work might have gone can be found in Keith Gandal and Stephen Kotkin, “Governing Work & Social Life in the U.S.A. and U.S.S.R.”, History of the Present, No 1, Feb 1985, pp. 4-14; and Keith Gandal’s unpublished essay “New Arts of Government in the Great War and Post-War Period”, archived at IMEC as document E.1.29/FCL2.A04-06.

The idea was that this period would be studied in relation to four countries – Foucault would do France, and Kotkin the USSR, David Horn Italy, and Keith Gandal the USA. Horn, Kotkin and Gandal all published books that developed out of their collaborative work with Foucault – respectively Social Bodies: Science, Reproduction, and Italian Modernity, Princeton University Press, 1994; Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization, University of California Press, 1995; and The Gun and the Pen: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and the Fiction of Mobilization, Oxford University Press, 2008.

It has taken a lot of work to gather this information – any additions or corrections would be gratefully received. Thanks to Alex Jeffrey for providing me with a photocopy of some material, to Colin Gordon for lending me a volume, and the Document Delivery Service at the University of Warwick for tracking down texts.