Michael Foucault

Michel Foucault
Born	15 October 1926 Poitiers, France
Died	25 June 1984(1984-06-25) (aged 57) Paris, France
Education	B.A., M.A.: École Normale Supremé Dr. cand.: Fondation Thiers Second BA/specialist diploma/DrE: University of Paris
Alma mater	École Normale Supérieure University of Paris
Era	20th-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Continental philosophy Post-structuralism
Institutions	École Normale Supérieure (1951–55) Université de Lille (1953–54) Uppsala University University of Warsaw Institut français Hamburg () University of Clermont-Ferrand Tunis University University of Paris VIII Collège de France University at Buffalo University of California, Berkeley New York University
Main interests	History of ideas, epistemology, historical epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of literature, philosophy of technology
Notable ideas	Biopower (biopolitics), disciplinary institution, discourse analysis, discursive formation, dispositif, épistème, "genealogy", governmentality, heterotopia, limit-experience, power-knowledge, panopticism, subjectivation (assujettissement), parrhesia, visibilités
Influences Althusser · Artaud · Bachelard · Barthes · Bataille · Blanchot · Borges · Canguilhem · Dumézil · Freud · Goffman · Hegel · Heidegger · Hyppolite · Kant · Marx · Merleau-Ponty · Nietzsche · Sade · Daniel Lagache  · Deleuze
Influenced Edward Said · Pierre Bourdieu · Gilles Deleuze · David Halperin · Hubert Dreyfus · Paul Rabinow · Jacques Rancière · Félix Guattari · Giorgio Agamben · Antonio Negri · Judith Butler · Ian Hacking · Talal Asad · Renata Salecl · Nikolas Rose · Jasbir Puar

Paul-Michel Foucault (15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984), generally known as Michel Foucault (French: [miʃɛl fuko]), was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, social theorist, and literary critic.

Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and how they are used as a form of social control through societal institutions. Though often cited as a post-structuralist and postmodernist, Foucault rejected these labels, preferring to present his thought as a critical history of modernity. His thought has influenced academics, especially those working in sociology, cultural studies, literary theory and critical theory. Activist groups have also found his theories compelling.

Born in Poitiers, France, into an upper-middle-class family, Foucault was educated at the Lycée Henri-IV, at the École Normale Supérieure, where he developed an interest in philosophy and came under the influence of his tutors Jean Hyppolite and Louis Althusser, and at the University of Paris (Sorbonne), where he earned degrees in philosophy and psychology. After several years as a cultural diplomat abroad, he returned to France and published his first major book, The History of Madness (1961). After obtaining work between 1960 and 1966 at the University of Clermont-Ferrand, he produced The Birth of the Clinic (1963) and The Order of Things (1966), publications which displayed his increasing involvement with structuralism, from which he later distanced himself. These first three histories exemplified a historiographical technique Foucault was developing called "archaeology".