In the 1950s, long before his ascent to international renown, Michel Foucault published a scant few works. His early writings on psychology, psychopathology, and anthropology have been dismissed as immature. However, recently discovered manuscripts from the mid-1950s, when Foucault was a lecturer at the University of Lille, testify to the significance of the work that the philosopher produced in the years leading up to the “archaeological” project he launched with History of Madness.

Elisabetta Basso offers a groundbreaking and in-depth analysis of Foucault’s Lille manuscripts that sheds new light on the origins of his philosophical project. She considers the epistemological style and methodology of these writings as well as their philosophical context and the scholarly networks in which Foucault was active, foregrounding his relationship to existential psychiatry. Young Foucault blurs the boundaries between biography and theory, exploring the transformations—and, at times, contradictions—that characterize the intellectual trajectory of a philosopher who, as Foucault himself put it, “turned to psychology, and from psychology to history.” Retracing the first steps of the philosopher’s intellectual journey, Basso shows how Foucault’s early writings provide key insights into his archaeological work of the 1960s. Assembling a vast array of archival sources—including manuscripts, reading notes, notes for lectures and conferences, and correspondence—this book develops a new and deeper understanding of Foucault’s body of work.

Basso provides a true archaeology of the first steps of Foucault’s project. With historical depth and theoretical insight, this book offers a groundbreaking approach to a long-unknown aspect of Foucault’s early thought. Young Foucault will be an indispensable companion for all readers interested in Foucault’s work and life. -- François Ewald, general editor of Foucault's lectures at the Collège de France
In this richly researched and highly original book, Elisabetta Basso offers a fascinating account of the earliest Foucault. She explores not only the depth of the young philosopher’s preoccupation with phenomenological and existential psychiatry but also the decisive role this early interest played in shaping the later, historical work that was to make him famous. -- Louis Sass, author of Madness and Modernism: Insanity in the Light of Modern Art, Literature, and Thought

Elisabetta Basso is an assistant professor at the University of Pavia and a member of the Centre d’archives en philosophie, histoire et édition des sciences at the École normale supérieure of Paris.

Bernard E. Harcourt is a chaired professor at Columbia University and the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris and has edited a range of works by Foucault in French and English.

Marie Satya McDonough is a Senior Lecturer in the College of Arts and Sciences Writing Program and the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at Boston University.