Michael C. Behrent, Foucault at a Hundred, Interviewed by Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, Coomonweal, October 15, 2026
This year marks the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Michel Foucault, one of the most influential French philosophers of the past fifty years. He is probably best known for his studies of madness, prisons, and sexuality (Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punish, and The History of Sexuality), which all elaborated in different ways on his basic claim that power and knowledge are inseparable. During his lifetime, he was often vilified by the right as deviant and subversive; since his death, some on the left have also rejected his approach to politics and intellectual history. What, if anything, remains relevant about his work today?
To answer this question, Commonweal contributor Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins spoke with the intellectual historian Michael Behrent, a leading interpreter of Foucault’s work. Behrent’s recent book, Becoming Foucault: The Poitiers Years, examines Foucault’s early life, a period that has received relatively little attention. Taking that book as the point of departure, their conversation covered the role that Catholicism played in Foucault’s youth, the connection between his religious background and his later work, and the ways Foucault’s work has been invoked—and sometimes misread—in contemporary political debates. The interview was conducted by email.
