Foucault, une aventure intellectuelle au Collège de France

From 30 September 2026 to 15 January 2026, the exhibition “Foucault, une aventure intellectuelle au Collège de France” explores the journey of Michel Foucault (1926-1984) within the institution where he taught from 1970 to 1984. On the occasion of the centenary of his birth, unpublished manuscripts, archives, and audio and video testimonies outline the movement of a thought that remains profoundly relevant today.

On 12 April 1970, the philosopher Michel Foucault, author of the celebrated and debated Histoire de la folie à l’âge classique and Les Mots et les Choses, was elected to the Collège de France to the chair of History of Systems of Thought.

This election was far from obvious for a researcher who had initially taught psychology but refused disciplinary allegiances, and whose career was already marked by brilliance and strong political commitments.

It inaugurated an intellectual adventure of nearly fourteen years whose resonances are still heard today, as evidenced by the fruitfulness of concepts such as “governmentality”, “biopolitics”, “pastoral power” or “regime of truth”.

His lectures at the Collège de France were much more than a mere outline of his written work. They allowed him to explore new fields and test new hypotheses. Their influence began very early with public success and the free circulation of recordings and typescripts.

It quickly spread beyond France, thanks to the presence of an international audience and the philosopher's numerous stays abroad, particularly in the United States, Brazil, and Japan.

The posthumous publication of his lectures, followed by their translations worldwide, made them a work in their own right, as widely read and cited as the books published during his lifetime.

They thus ensured an unexpected second life for his thought, as they renewed the perception of its stakes and illuminated his method.

The hundred or so pieces on display – unpublished manuscripts, personal objects, audio and video archives – retrace a dazzling international trajectory too soon interrupted, leaving a considerable scientific output.

The exhibition particularly highlights the coherence and permanence of an ever-evolving thought that refused categorisation.

It reconstructs this adventure within a network of friendships and peers within the Collège de France, but also of strategies and struggles outside its walls.