Michel Foucault: influences, peers and legacy

Every connection with its receipt

Foucault built his archaeology of knowledge out of Nietzschean genealogy, the French history-of-science tradition, and the avant-garde prose of Roussel and Blanchot. This mix traces those threads through the Paris of the ENS and the Collège de France, into painting and music, and out into the gender, postcolonial and biopolitical theory that followed.

The Kynda mix for Michel Foucault

• Key Influence · On the Genealogy of Morality by Friedrich Nietzsche (1887). Foucault repeatedly named Nietzsche the decisive encounter, saying his reading of Nietzsche broke him from the Hegelian and phenomenological training of the ENS. The Genealogy's method — morality as the sediment of forgotten struggles rather than timeless truth — becomes his own in the 1971 essay 'Nietzsche, Genealogy, History' and structures Discipline and Punish, where punishment is traced through power relations rather than progress toward humanity.','
• Influencia Obscura · The Normal and the Pathological by Georges Canguilhem (1943). Canguilhem, physician and historian of the life sciences, sponsored Foucault's doctoral thesis on madness when others balked, and his work on how medicine manufactures the norm underwrites The Birth of the Clinic and the later analyses of biopower. Foucault's tribute essay 'Life: Experience and Science' credits Canguilhem with making the history of science a philosophical problem about error, concepts and the living being.
• Local Roots · Genesis and Structure of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit by Jean Hyppolite (1946). Hyppolite taught Foucault at the Lycée Henri-IV and the ENS in Paris, supervised his early work, and held the Collège de France chair that Foucault would occupy after his death — renaming it the History of Systems of Thought. His inaugural lecture, 'The Discourse on Language,' is an extended homage to Hyppolite, whose Hegel scholarship gave Foucault the dialectic he spent his career trying to escape.
• Beyond the Medium · Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez (1656). Foucault opens The Order of Things with a dazzling reading of Velázquez's canvas, using its mirrors, its absent royal sitters and the painter's own gaze to diagram the vacant place of the sovereign subject in classical representation. The painting is not an illustration but the argument's engine: the chapter makes a seventeenth-century Spanish court portrait the threshold of an entire epistemic order.
• Peer · Anti-Oedipus by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari (1972). Deleuze and Foucault were allies through the post-1968 years: they co-signed prison-information campaigns, published the interview 'Intellectuals and Power' together, and Foucault's preface to the English Anti-Oedipus called it an introduction to the non-fascist life. Deleuze later wrote the book Foucault, mapping his friend's concepts of the fold, the statement and the diagram with unmatched intimacy.
• From the Canon · Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison by Michel Foucault (1975). Written out of his activism with the Prisons Information Group, this is the hinge of the career: power stops being repression and becomes productive, anonymous, bodily. From the scaffold of Damiens to Bentham's Panopticon and the timetable, Foucault shows the modern soul manufactured by surveillance and examination — and quietly implicates schools, barracks, factories and his own discipline of the human sciences.
• Key Collaborator · Fragile Lives: Violence, Power and Solidarity in Eighteenth-Century Paris by Arlette Farge (1986). The historian Arlette Farge co-edited Le Désordre des familles (1982) with Foucault, a collection of eighteenth-century lettres de cachet in which families begged the king to imprison their own kin — archival material that fed his thinking on how power is solicited from below. Fragile Lives extends that method, reconstructing street-level Parisian lives from police and judicial records.
• Legacy · Gender Trouble by Judith Butler (1990). Butler builds performativity directly on Foucault's argument that sexuality is produced rather than repressed, drawing on The History of Sexuality and his introduction to the Herculine Barbin memoirs while criticizing his account of the body's materiality. Gender Trouble made Foucauldian genealogy foundational to queer theory, turning the critique of the sexual subject into a politics of denaturalization.

What influenced Michel Foucault

• Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche was a lasting influence on Foucault. (also via On the Genealogy of Morality, Untimely Meditations) “In the early 1950s, Foucault came under the influence of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche , who remained a core influence on his work throughout his life.” (Wikipedia)
• Maurice Blanchot. Foucault adopted a technique from Blanchot. (also via Thomas the Obscure) “Enamoured of Blanchot's literary style and critical theories, in later works he adopted Blanchot's technique of "interviewing" himself.” (Wikipedia)
• Georges Canguilhem. The page lists Canguilhem as Foucault’s doctoral advisor. (also via The Normal and the Pathological) “Doctoral advisor Georges Canguilhem Maurice de Gandillac Other advisors Louis Althusser Jean-Toussaint Desanti Jean Hyppolite Maurice Merleau-Ponty” (Wikipedia)
• René Magritte. Correspondence with Magritte inspired a writing project. (also via The Treachery of Images) “Inspired by a correspondence with the surrealist artist René Magritte , Foucault started to write a book about the impressionist artist Édouard Manet , but never completed it.” (Wikipedia)
• Jean Hyppolite. Foucault studied under Hyppolite. (also via Genesis and Structure of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit) “Here he studied under the philosopher Jean Hyppolite , an existentialist and expert on the work of 19th-century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel .” (Wikipedia)
• Louis Althusser. Althusser tutored and influenced Foucault. (also via For Marx) “In 1948, the philosopher Louis Althusser became a tutor at the ENS. A Marxist , he influenced both Foucault and a number of other students, encouraging them to join the French Communist Party .” (Wikipedia)
• Locus Solus by Raymond Roussel (1914). Locus Solus (Raymond Roussel) — ghost for Michel Foucault “In May 1963, he published a book devoted to poet, novelist, and playwright Raymond Roussel.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett (1953). Foucault identified Waiting for Godot as a formative break. “For me the break was first Beckett's Waiting for Godot , a breathtaking performance.” (Wikipedia)
• Sigmund Freud (1856). Foucault adopted theories associated with Freud. “Foucault adopted many of the theories of the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud , undertaking psychoanalytical interpretation of his dreams and making friends undergo Rorschach tests .” (Wikipedia)
• Maurice de Gandillac. The page lists de Gandillac as Foucault’s doctoral advisor. “Doctoral advisor Georges Canguilhem Maurice de Gandillac Other advisors Louis Althusser Jean-Toussaint Desanti Jean Hyppolite Maurice Merleau-Ponty” (Wikipedia)
• Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez (1656). Las Meninas (Diego Velázquez) — culture for Michel Foucault “In the 1966 book Les Mots et Les Choses (The Order of Things), philosopher Michel Foucault devotes the opening chapter to a detailed analysis of Las Meninas.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Raymond Roussel by Raymond Roussel. Roussel’s work prompted a literary study by Foucault. “Foucault adored the work of Raymond Roussel and wrote a literary study of it.” (Wikipedia)
• The Normal and the Pathological by Georges Canguilhem (1943). The Normal and the Pathological (Georges Canguilhem) — ghost for Michel Foucault “=== University studies: 1946–1951 === In autumn 1946, attaining excellent results, Foucault was admitted to the élite École Normale Supérieure (ENS), for which he undertook exams and an oral interrogation by Georges Canguilhem and Pierre…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant (1781). Critique of Pure Reason (Immanuel Kant) — titan for Michel Foucault “Although studying various subjects, Foucault soon gravitated towards philosophy, reading not only Hegel and Marx but also Immanuel Kant, Edmund Husserl and most significantly, Martin Heidegger.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Thomas the Obscure by Maurice Blanchot (1941). Thomas the Obscure (Maurice Blanchot) — ghost for Michel Foucault “Interested in literature, Foucault was an avid reader of the philosopher Maurice Blanchot's book reviews published in Nouvelle Revue Française.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Being and Time by Martin Heidegger (1927). Being and Time (Martin Heidegger) — titan for Michel Foucault “Although studying various subjects, Foucault soon gravitated towards philosophy, reading not only Hegel and Marx but also Immanuel Kant, Edmund Husserl and most significantly, Martin Heidegger.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Jean-Toussaint Desanti. The page lists Desanti among Foucault’s advisors. “Doctoral advisor Georges Canguilhem Maurice de Gandillac Other advisors Louis Althusser Jean-Toussaint Desanti Jean Hyppolite Maurice Merleau-Ponty” (Wikipedia)
• On the Genealogy of Morality by Friedrich Nietzsche (1887). On the Genealogy of Morality (Friedrich Nietzsche) — titan for Michel Foucault “In August 1953, Foucault and Barraqué holidayed in Italy, where the philosopher immersed himself in Untimely Meditations (1873–1876), a set of four essays by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• The Treachery of Images by René Magritte (1929). The Treachery of Images (René Magritte) — culture for Michel Foucault “Inspired by a correspondence with the surrealist artist René Magritte, Foucault started to write a book about the impressionist artist Édouard Manet, but never completed it.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Untimely Meditations by Friedrich Nietzsche. Reading Nietzsche’s book deeply affected Foucault. “In August 1953, Foucault and Barraqué holidayed in Italy, where the philosopher immersed himself in Untimely Meditations (1873–1876), a set of four essays by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche . Later describing Nietzsche's work as "a r…” (Wikipedia)
• The Death of the Author by Roland Barthes. Foucault’s lecture responded to Barthes’s essay. “Foucault also gave a lecture responding to Roland Barthes' famous essay " The Death of the Author " titled " What Is an Author? " in 1969, later published in full.” (Wikipedia)
• Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908). The page lists Merleau-Ponty among Foucault’s advisors. “Doctoral advisor Georges Canguilhem Maurice de Gandillac Other advisors Louis Althusser Jean-Toussaint Desanti Jean Hyppolite Maurice Merleau-Ponty” (Wikipedia)
• Le Marteau sans maître by Pierre Boulez (1955). Le Marteau sans maître (Pierre Boulez) — culture for Michel Foucault “He also had close links with three of the leading philosophers of the time: Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault and Roland Barthes.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• The Formation of the Scientific Mind by Gaston Bachelard (1938). The Formation of the Scientific Mind (Gaston Bachelard) — ghost for Michel Foucault “He began reading the publications of philosopher Gaston Bachelard, taking a particular interest in his work exploring the history of science.” (en.wikipedia.org)

Peers and kindred spirits

• University of Clermont-Ferrand. Foucault held a tenured philosophy post at Clermont-Ferrand. “Canguilhem recommended him to Jules Vuillemin, then head of the philosophy department at the University of Clermont-Ferrand, where Michel Foucault taught psychology from 1961.” (Collège de France)
• Institut français Hamburg. Foucault directed the Institut français Hamburg and taught courses there. “1958-1961 : Director of the Hamburg Institute” (Collège de France)
• University of Warsaw. Foucault took charge of the University of Warsaw’s Centre Français. “1958 : Director of the French Center at Warsaw University (Poland)” (Collège de France)
• Collège de France. Foucault was elected to the Collège de France, where he lectured. “1970-1984 : Professor at the Collège de France, chair History of systems of thought” (Collège de France)
• University of Tunis. Foucault taught psychology at the University of Tunis. “1966-1967 : seconded professor at the Tunis Faculty of Letters” (Collège de France)
• Université de Lille. Foucault taught psychology at the Université de Lille. “He was awarded the agrégation in philosophy in 1951, and his first position as assistant professor of psychology at the Lille Faculty of Letters the following year.” (Collège de France)
• University of California, Berkeley. Foucault was a visiting professor at Berkeley. “The English language collection features two lecture series delivered at UC Berkeley in the 1980's on Truth and Subjectivity and Parrhesia.” (UC Berkeley Library)
• Uppsala University. Foucault held a post at Uppsala University. “1955-1958 : lecturer at the University of Uppsala (Sweden), cultural attaché in Stockholm and director of the Maison française in Uppsala” (Collège de France)
• University of Paris VIII. Foucault headed the philosophy department at Paris VIII. “1969-1970 : Professor at the University of Vincennes” (Collège de France)
• University at Buffalo. Foucault served as a professor at the University at Buffalo. “In 1970 and 1972, Foucault served as a professor in the French Department of the University at Buffalo in Buffalo, New York.” (Wikipedia)
• Jean Genet. Foucault worked alongside Genet in an anti-racist campaign. “In this he worked alongside his old rival Sartre, the journalist Claude Mauriac , and one of his literary heroes, Jean Genet.” (Wikipedia)
• Anti-Oedipus by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari (1972). Anti-Oedipus (Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari) — peer for Michel Foucault “In it Baudrillard also launched attacks on those philosophers, like Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, who believed that sexual desire and sexual liberation could be a revolutionary force.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Paul Veyne. Foucault and Veyne launched an academic book series together. “Along with Paul Veyne and François Wahl , Foucault launched a new series of academic books, known as Des travaux ( Some Works ), through the company Seuil , which he hoped would improve the state of academic research in France.” (Wikipedia)
• École normale supérieure. Foucault taught psychology at the École Normale Supérieure. “From 1951 to 1955, he worked as a psychology instructor at the ENS at Althusser's invitation.” (Wikipedia)
• Genesis and Structure of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit by Jean Hyppolite (1946). Genesis and Structure of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (Jean Hyppolite) — geography for Michel Foucault “Born in Poitiers, France, into an upper-middle-class family, Foucault was educated at the Lycée Henri-IV, at the École Normale Supérieure, developing an interest in philosophy and coming under the influence of his tutors Jean Hyppolite a…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• François Wahl. Foucault and Wahl launched an academic book series together. “Along with Paul Veyne and François Wahl , Foucault launched a new series of academic books, known as Des travaux ( Some Works ), through the company Seuil , which he hoped would improve the state of academic research in France.” (Wikipedia)
• For Marx by Louis Althusser (1965). For Marx (Louis Althusser) — geography for Michel Foucault “Born in Poitiers, France, into an upper-middle-class family, Foucault was educated at the Lycée Henri-IV, at the École Normale Supérieure, developing an interest in philosophy and coming under the influence of his tutors Jean Hyppolite a…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Mythe et épopée by Georges Dumézil (1968). Mythe et épopée (Georges Dumézil) — geography for Michel Foucault “=== Sweden, Poland, and West Germany: 1955–1960 === Foucault spent the next five years abroad, first in Sweden, working as cultural diplomat at the University of Uppsala, a job obtained through his acquaintance with historian of religion…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Mythologies by Roland Barthes (1957). Mythologies (Roland Barthes) — peer for Michel Foucault “Although it was critically acclaimed by Maurice Blanchot, Michel Serres, Roland Barthes, Gaston Bachelard, and Fernand Braudel, it was largely ignored by the leftist press, much to Foucault's disappointment.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• The Foucault Reader by Paul Rabinow (1984). The Foucault Reader (Paul Rabinow) — collaborator for Michel Foucault “Dreyfus, Herbert L., and Paul Rabinow.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Agence de Press-Libération. Foucault was involved in founding the APL. “Foucault was also involved in founding the Agence de Press-Libération (APL), a group of leftist journalists who intended to cover news stories neglected by the mainstream press.” (Wikipedia)
• Of Grammatology by Jacques Derrida (1967). Of Grammatology (Jacques Derrida) — peer for Michel Foucault “It was notably criticised for advocating metaphysics by young philosopher Jacques Derrida in a March 1963 lecture at the University of Paris.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Jean Barraqué. Foucault and Barraqué tried to produce work together. “Embracing the Parisian avant-garde , Foucault entered into a romantic relationship with the serialist composer Jean Barraqué . Together, they tried to produce their greatest work, heavily used recreational drugs and engaged in sado-masoc…” (Wikipedia)
• Groupe d'Information sur les Prisons. Foucault co-founded the GIP. “In February 1971, Foucault co-founded the Groupe d'Information sur les Prisons (GIP) along with historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet and journalist Jean-Marie Domenach .” (Wikipedia)
• São Paulo Faculty of Philosophy. The biography records an additional visiting professorship in São Paulo. “1965 : Visiting professor at the São Paulo Faculty of Philosophy” (Collège de France)
• Pierre Bourdieu (1930). Foucault and Bourdieu coauthored a document. “He and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu authored a document condemning Mitterrand's inaction that was published in Libération , and they also took part in large public protests on the issue.” (Wikipedia)
• Jean-Paul Sartre. Foucault worked alongside Sartre in an anti-racist campaign. “In this he worked alongside his old rival Sartre, the journalist Claude Mauriac , and one of his literary heroes, Jean Genet.” (Wikipedia)
• Fragile Lives: Violence, Power and Solidarity in Eighteenth-Century Paris by Arlette Farge (1986). Fragile Lives: Violence, Power and Solidarity in Eighteenth-Century Paris (Arlette Farge) — collaborator for Michel Foucault “Michel Foucault inspired her to analyse the mechanisms of power.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life by Hervé Guibert (1990). To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life (Hervé Guibert) — collaborator for Michel Foucault (openlibrary.org)

Who Michel Foucault influenced

• Gender Trouble by Judith Butler (1990). Gender Trouble (Judith Butler) — legacy for Michel Foucault “Foucault's historization of sex has also affected feminist theorists such as Judith Butler, who used Foucault's theories about the relation between subject, power and sex to question gendered subjects.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Orientalism by Edward W. Said (1978). Orientalism (Edward W. Said) — legacy for Michel Foucault (openlibrary.org)
• Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life by Giorgio Agamben (1995). Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (Giorgio Agamben) — legacy for Michel Foucault “In the present climate of cynical disgust with the exercise of political power, Foucault's importance can hardly be exaggerated." Foucault's work on "biopower" has been widely influential within the disciplines of philosophy and politica…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Cristina Rivera Garza. History of Madness (Michel Foucault) — culture for Cristina Rivera Garza (via History of Madness) (openlibrary.org)
• Taryn Simon. The Order of Things (Michel Foucault) — culture for Taryn Simon (via The Order of Things) (openlibrary.org)
• Laura Kurgan. Discipline and Punish (Michel Foucault) — culture for Laura Kurgan (via Discipline and Punish) (openlibrary.org)