Didier Eribon (born 10 July 1953) is a French author and philosopher, and a historian of French intellectual life. He lives in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

Life

Didier Eribon was born in

Reims Reims ( , , ; also spelled Rheims in English) is the most populous city in the French department of Marne, and the 12th most populous city in France. The city lies northeast of Paris on the Vesle river, a tributary of the Aisne. Founded by ...

into a working-class family. He was the first in his family to finish secondary education and abandon his working-class identity. He credits his mother with helping him achieve this; a factory worker, she had to work overtime to be able to pay for his education.Interview about the book
''The Guardian,'' May 27th 2018 Working as a hotel porter at night and going to college during day, abandoning his parents' ways of life, Eribon felt like a working-class "traitor". He never became part of the rich elite, whose children even in education have different routes, the

grandes écoles Grandes may refer to: * Agustín Muñoz Grandes, Spanish general and politician *Banksia ser. Grandes, a series of plant species native to Australia * Grandes y San Martín, a municipality located in the province of Ávila, Castile and León, Spain ...

for the elite. The non-elite attend the universities.

Work

Didier Eribon is professor at the School of Philosophy and Social Sciences of the University of Amiens (France). He has for years been running a seminar at the

École des hautes études en sciences sociales The School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (french: École des hautes études en sciences sociales; EHESS) is a graduate ''grande école'' and '' grand établissement'' in Paris focused on academic research in the social sciences. The ...

. He has also been Visiting Professor at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

for several years, and at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholar ...

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

. Eribon has lectured in a great number of countries and, in the U.S., at

The New School The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

(NYU), the

University of Michigan at Ann Arbor , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, the

University of Virginia at Charlottesville The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective adm ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

among others. He was one of the speakers at the Conference "Foucault in Berkeley. Twenty Years Later", held in

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...

October 2004, with

Leo Bersani Leo Bersani (April 16, 1931 – February 20, 2022) was an American academic, known for his contributions to French literary criticism and queer theory. He was known for his 1987 essay "Is the Rectum a Grave?" and his 1995 book ''Homos''. Bersani w ...

Judith Butler Judith Pamela Butler (born February 24, 1956) is an American philosopher and gender theorist whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminism, queer theory, and literary theory. In 1993, Butler ...

Paul Rabinow Paul M. Rabinow (June 21, 1944 – April 6, 2021) was professor of anthropology at the University of California (Berkeley), director of the Anthropology of the Contemporary Research Collaboratory (ARC), and former director of human practices f ...

Hubert Dreyfus Hubert Lederer Dreyfus (; October 15, 1929 – April 22, 2017) was an American philosopher and professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. His main interests included phenomenology, existentialism and the philosophy of bo ...

, Michael Lucey, and others. He is the author of several books, including his ''Réflexions sur la question gay'' (1999, ''Insult and the Making of the Gay Self''), ''Une morale du minoritaire'' (2001), and ''Echapper à la psychanalyse'' (2005, ''Escaping Psychoanalysis''). His biography of

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault (, ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and how ...

(1989), published in English in 1991, has been praised by

Pierre Bourdieu Pierre Bourdieu (; 1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was a French sociologist and public intellectual. Bourdieu's contributions to the sociology of education, the theory of sociology, and sociology of aesthetics have achieved wide influence i ...

Paul Veyne Paul Veyne (; 13 June 1930 – 29 September 2022) was a French archaeologist and historian, and a specialist of Ancient Rome. A student of the École Normale Supérieure and member of the École française de Rome, he was honorary professor at th ...

and

Hayden White Hayden V. White (July 12, 1928 – March 5, 2018) was an American historian in the tradition of literary criticism, perhaps most famous for his work '' Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe'' (1973/2014). Career W ...

, among others. His 1988 book of conversations with

Claude Lévi-Strauss Claude Lévi-Strauss (, ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social Anthro ...

was also published in English in 1991. Eribon wrote frequently for ''

Le Nouvel Observateur (), previously known as (1964–2014), is a weekly French news magazine. Based in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris, it is the most prominent French general information magazine in terms of audience and circulation. Its current editor is Cécil ...

,'' the French weekly magazine. He reviewed books in the fields of philosophy and social sciences.

Autobiography

His 2009 memoir ''

Returning to Reims In retail, a product return is the process of a customer taking previously purchased merchandise back to the retailer, and in turn receiving a refund in the original form of payment, exchange for another item (identical or different), or a sto ...

'' has had an influence beyond the field of sociology. French novelist,

Édouard Louis Édouard Louis (born Eddy Bellegueule; 30 October 1992) is a French writer. Biography Édouard Louis, born Eddy Bellegueule was born and raised in the town of Hallencourt in northern France, which is the setting of his first novel, the autob ...

cites the book as having "marked a turning point for his future as a writer." Additionally, the book was adapted for the stage by Laurent Hatat, in a play that debuted at the Festival Avignon in July 2014. It was directed by

Thomas Ostermeier Thomas Ostermeier (born 3 September 1968, Soltau, West Germany) is a German theatre director. He currently mainly works for the Schaubühne. Biography Ostermeier began his theatrical career in 1990 acting under director Einar Schleef, one of hi ...

as part of the 2017

Manchester International Festival The Manchester International Festival is a biennial international arts festival, with a specific focus on original new work, held in the English city of Manchester and run by Factory International. The festival is a biennial event, first taking ...

. The book also received enthusiastic reviews in the French press, such as ''

Le Monde ''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...

'', ''

Libération ''Libération'' (), popularly known as ''Libé'' (), is a daily newspaper in France, founded in Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968. Initially positioned on the far-left of France's ...

'', ''

L'Express ''L'Express'' () is a French weekly news magazine headquartered in Paris. The weekly stands at the political centre in the French media landscape, and has a lifestyle supplement, ''L'Express Styles'', and a job supplement, ''Réussir''. History ...

'' and ''

Les Inrockuptibles ''Les Inrockuptibles'' () is a French cultural magazine. Started as a monthly magazine in 1986, it became weekly in 1995. Now it is a monthly again, since 2021. In the beginning, rock music was the magazine's primary focus, though every issue in ...

''.

Prizes

Eribon is the recipient of the 2008 Brudner Prize.April 10, 2008 - Brudner Prize Winner Lecture at Yale Club NYC
/ref> He returned the prize in May 2011 (see his letter: "I Return the Brudner Prize" on his personal homepage).

Publications

*''Michel Foucault''. Trans. Betsy Wing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1991. *''Conversations with Claude Lévi-Strauss'', by Claude Lévi-Strauss and Didier Eribon, Translated by Paula Wissing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. 192 pages. * ''Faut-il brûler Dumézil? Mythologie, science et politique''. Paris: Flammarion, 1992 *''Michel Foucault et ses contemporains'' (1994). *''Insult and the Making of the Gay Self''. (originally ''Réflexions sur la question gay'' (1999)) Translated by Michael Lucey. Duke University Press, 2004. 440 pages. *''Papiers d'identité'' (2000). *''Une morale du minoritaire. Variations sur un thème de Jean Genet'' (2001) *''Hérésies. Essais sur la théorie de la sexualité'' (2003) *''Sur cet instant fragile... Carnets, janvier-août 2004'' (2004). *''Echapper à la psychanalyse'' (2005). *''D'une revolution conservatrice et de ses effets sur la gauche francaise'' (2007). *''Returning to Reims'' (2018), an English translation of the ''Retour à Reims'' (2009).

Notes and references

External links

* * at Columbia Maison Française {{DEFAULTSORT:Eribon, Didier 1953 births Writers from Reims 20th-century French philosophers 21st-century French philosophers University of California, Berkeley faculty School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences faculty French gay writers French LGBT rights activists French essayists French sociologists Living people Officiers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres 21st-century LGBT people