Electing Foucault to the Collège de France: Institutional and Scientific Implications

Introduction and moderation: Didier Fassin

Abstract

This session, introduced by Prof. Didier Fassin, will focus on the institutional and scholarly issues surrounding Michel Foucault’s election to the Collège de France.

Céline Surprenant’s (Collège de France) presentation will examine the situation at the Collège de France at the time Michel Foucault’s “intellectual adventure” began. At the time of his election and appointment in 1970, the institution was reeling from the aftermath of the May 1968 university unrest and the subsequent reorganization of research practices and administration. During this period of institutional transformation, the professors demonstrated both a commitment to the traditions of the Collège de France and a desire to benefit from the resources allocated to the modernization of knowledge. It was an ideal setting for someone who would make the relationship between science and power the core of his thinking.

Orazio Irrera (University of Paris 8) will focus particularly on the transformations in the status and function of philosophy, which Foucault—especially after the publication of *The Order of Things* —gradually situated within the framework of a *History of Systems of Thought *.

Orazio Irrera

Orazio Irrera is an associate professor of philosophy at Paris 8 University (France), a member of the Laboratory for Studies and Research on Contemporary Logics in Philosophy (LLCP, EA 408), and editor-in-chief of the journal Materiali Foucaultiani , as well as director of the multi-year research seminar “Foucault at Paris 8.” He also directs the GRAF (Research Group on Foucauldian Archives, University of Paris 8). He is currently working on the publication of unpublished texts by Foucault, including, with Daniele Lorenzini, the edition of Foucault’s essay Le Discours philosophique (Gallimard, Seuil, EHESS, 2023) and *The Place of Man in Modern Western Thought: Lectures in Tunis (1966–67) * (Gallimard, Seuil, EHESS, to be published in November 2026). In 2025, he also edited, with Henri-Paul Fruchaud, the volume *History of Truth: Lectures at the State University of New York at Buffalo, March and April 1972 (Paris, Vrin, “Philosophie du présent” collection, “Foucault inédit” series, 2025).

Céline Surprenant

Céline Surprenant, a research engineer at the Institute for Literary and Linguistic Studies at the Collège de France and a permanent member of “République des Savoirs ” (UMR 8241), is contributing to a “Normative History of the Collège de France,” edited by Prof. Dario Mantovani, holder of the Chair of Law, Culture and Society in Ancient Rome at the Collège de France, to be published in 2028.