Michel Foucault (French pronunciation: [miʃɛl fuko]) (15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984) was a French philosopher, sociologist and historian. He held a chair at the Collège de France with the title "History of Systems of Thought," and also taught at the University of California, Berkeley. Foucault is best known for his critical studies of social institutions, most notably psychiatry, medicine, the human sciences, and the prison system, as well as for his work on the history of human sexuality.

Foucault's work on power, and the relationships among power, knowledge, and discourse has been widely discussed. In the 1960s Foucault was often associated with the structuralist movement. Foucault later distanced himself from structuralism.

While Foucault is typically characterized as a post-structuralist and postmodernist, he personally rejected the postmodernist and post-structuralist labels, preferring to classify his thought as a critical history of modernity, rooted in Kant. Foucault was born on 15 October 1926 in Poitiers as Paul-Michel Foucault to a notable provincial family. His father, Paul Foucault, was an eminent surgeon and hoped his son would join him in the profession.

His early education was a mix of success and mediocrity until he attended the Jesuit Collège Saint-Stanislas, where he excelled. During this period, Poitiers was part of Vichy France and later came under German occupation. After World War II, Foucault was admitted to the prestigious École Normale Supérieure (rue d'Ulm), the traditional gateway to an academic career in the humanities in France.

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