Steven Maynard, Michel and Mathurin: Finding Foucault in the Archives (2025)

Steven Maynard, Michel and Mathurin: Finding Foucault in the Archives, Archivaria 100 (Fall/Winter 2025): 44-73
https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/14061

Abstract
In this article, we follow Foucault into the archives. Foucault spent much of his working life reading and researching in libraries and archives, and yet he most often figures in the archival literature as the creator of the rarified concept of “the archive.” As a counterpoint, this article explores Foucault’s work in archives, his use of archives in his work, and the significance he attached to archival research. Ultimately, I contend that it is impossible to understand the abstract archive as concept without first grounding it in the experiential, epistemological, methodological, and political dimensions of finding Foucault in the archives.

RÉSUMÉ
Cet article nous invite à suivre Foucault dans les archives. Foucault a passé une bonne partie de sa vie professionnelle en tant que lecteur et chercheur dans les bibliothèques et les archives; toutefois, dans la littérature archivistique, il apparaît le plus souvent comme le créateur du concept ésotérique de “l’archive”. En contrepartie, cet article explore le travail de Foucault dans les archives, l’emploi qu’il fait des archives dans son oeuvre, et la signification qu’il attribue à la recherche dans les archives. Finalement, je propose qu’il soit impossible de comprendre l’archive abstraite en tant que concept sans l’ancrer d’abord dans les dimensions expérientielle, épistémologique, méthodologique et politique de la rencontre avec Foucault dans les archives.

Steven Maynard is an adjunct associate professor in the Department of History at Queen’s University, where he teaches the history of sexuality. His article “Queer Parrhesiast,” in “Devotion: Today’s Future Becomes Tomorrow’s Archive,” a special issue of PUBLIC: Art/Culture/Ideas 33, no. 65 (2022), is a study of the personal archives of gay-left thinker Alexander Wilson, who interviewed Foucault during his stay in Toronto in the spring of 1982. The article, which reproduces the manuscript of the interview with Foucault found in Wilson’s papers, is part of a book Steven is writing on Foucault’s visits to Canada/Québec and his impact on local activist-intellectuals. A previous article, “Police/Archives,” in Archivaria, no. 68 (Fall 2009), won the Association of Canadian Archivists’ W. Kaye Lamb Prize for the article that most advances archival thinking in Canada.