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 career of Michel Foucault (1926–1984) within the institution where he taught from 1970 to 1984. Marking the centenary of his birth, unpublished manuscripts, archives and audio and video testimonies outline the movement of a body of thought that remains deeply relevant today.

On 12 April 1970, the philosopher Michel Foucault, an author as celebrated as he was debated for Madness and Civilization and The Order of Things, was elected to the Collège de France to the chair of the History of Systems of Thought.

This election was far from self-evident for a researcher who had first taught psychology but refused disciplinary allegiances, and whose career was already marked by controversy and strong political commitments.

It inaugurated an intellectual adventure of almost fourteen years whose resonances can still be heard today, as shown by the enduring fertility of concepts such as “governmentality”, “biopolitics”, “pastoral power” and “regime of truth”.

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

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

The posthumous publication of the courses, followed by their translations around the world, have made them a body of work in its own right, as widely read and cited as the books published during his lifetime.

In this way they gave his thought an unexpected second life, as they renewed the understanding of its stakes and shed light on his method.

The hundred or so works on display – unpublished manuscripts, personal objects, audio and video archives – trace a dazzling international trajectory, cut short too soon, leaving a considerable scholarly output.

The exhibition in particular sheds light on the coherence and enduring relevance of a thought in constant evolution that refused to be pigeonholed.