Paris 8 University Vincennes-Saint-Denis (french: Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis) is a

public university A public university or public college is a university or college that is in owned by the state or receives significant public funds through a national or subnational government, as opposed to a private university. Whether a national universit ...

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 ...

, France. Once part of the historic

University of Paris , image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of Arms , latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis , motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin) , mottoeng = Here and a ...

, it is now an autonomous public institution. It is one of the thirteen successors of the world's second oldest academic institution, the University of Paris, and was established shortly before the latter officially ceased to exist on 31 December 1970. It was founded as a direct response to

events of May 1968 Beginning in May 1968, a period of civil unrest occurred throughout France, lasting some seven weeks and punctuated by demonstrations, general strikes, as well as the occupation of universities and factories. At the height of events, which ha ...

. This response was twofold: it was sympathetic to students' demands for more freedom, but also represented the movement of students out of central Paris, especially the

Latin Quarter The Latin Quarter of Paris (french: Quartier latin, ) is an area in the 5th and the 6th arrondissements of Paris. It is situated on the left bank of the Seine, around the Sorbonne. Known for its student life, lively atmosphere, and bistros ...

, where the street fighting of 1968 had taken place. UnivP8

History

Founded in 1969, the new experimental institution was named ''Centre Universitaire Expérimental de Vincennes'' (CUEV) in

Vincennes Vincennes (, ) is a commune in the Val-de-Marne department in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. It is next to but does not include the Château de Vincennes and Bois de Vincennes, which are attached ...

. In 1971, it gained full university status, thus allowing it to award its own degrees, and renamed "Université Paris VIII". Since moving to Saint-Denis in 1980, the university has become a major teaching and research centre for humanities in the

Île-de-France , timezone1 = CET , utc_offset1 = +01:00 , timezone1_DST = CEST , utc_offset1_DST = +02:00 , blank_name_sec1 = Gross regional product , blank_info_sec1 = Ranked 1st , bla ...

region.

Tumultuous years

As soon as it opened, Vincennes became the venue for a continuation of 1968, being occupied almost immediately by student radicals, and being the scene of violent confrontations with the police. One incident, in early 1972, involved a janitors' (travailleurs du nettoyage) strike. The radicalized janitors invaded classrooms, accused the professors of being scabs, and demanded solidarity. Meanwhile, there was so much radical leafleting, some university hallways were clogged with ankle-deep crumpled leaflets. It became particularly notorious for its radical philosophy department, assembled and then headed by

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 ...

, who in this stage of his career was at his most militant, on one occasion participating in a student occupation and pelting the police outside the building with projectiles. The scandal of this department emerged not around this incident, however, but around one of the philosophy professors,

Jacques Lacan Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (, , ; 13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud", Lacan gave yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, and pu ...

's daughter

Judith Miller Judith Miller (born January 2, 1948) is an American journalist and commentator known for her coverage of Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) program both before and after the 2003 invasion, which was later discovered to have been based on ...

, who was not only a committed

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

, like most of the faculty, but indeed a

Maoist Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Ch ...

as well. The department had its accreditation withdrawn after it was revealed that Miller had handed out course credit to strangers she met on a bus. (Miller was subsequently fired by the French education ministry after saying in a radio interview that the university was a capitalist institution and that she was trying to make it function as badly as possible.)

Recent reforms

Since the turmoil in the late 1960s, the university has endorsed a far more mainstream academic life and has brought in new departments, new professors, and national rules to effect this change. In 1980, the university was relocated to the suburb of Saint-Denis. The university's capacity of 24,000 students per year makes "Paris VIII" an important university with internationally recognized departments in

Philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

Political Sciences Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

Cinema Arts Cinema may refer to: Film * Cinematography, the art of motion-picture photography * Film or movie, a series of still images that create the illusion of a moving image ** Film industry, the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking ...

Communication Studies Communication studies or communication science is an academic discipline that deals with processes of human communication and behavior, patterns of communication in interpersonal relationships, social interactions and communication in differen ...

, and

Feminist Studies Women's studies is an academic field that draws on feminist and interdisciplinary methods to place women's lives and experiences at the center of study, while examining social and cultural constructs of gender; systems of privilege and oppressi ...

Academics

The university offers over a hundred undergraduate, graduate and diploma courses. It is particularly well known for its political science programme as it is the only public university in France to offer this subject at undergraduate level. The University of Paris VIII also offers some distance-learning opportunities for a select number of subjects such as Law and Psychology.

Affiliations

Paris-VIII is well-connected and has over 250 partnerships with universities around the world. They include the

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

, the

Beijing Film Academy Beijing Film Academy (BFA; ) is a coeducational state-run higher education institution in Beijing, China. The film school is the largest institution specializing in the tertiary education for film and television production in Asia. The academy h ...

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

, the Free University of Berlin, the Humboldt University of Berlin, the University of Vienna as well as since 2016 the

University of Rojava Rojava University ( ku, Zanîngeha Rojava, ar, جامعة روجآفا, syc, ܒܝܬ ܨܘܒܐ ܕܪܘܓܐܦܐ), is a university in Syria. The university was founded in July 2016 with curricula for medicine, engineering, sciences, arts, and humani ...

. Students are encouraged to spend one or two semesters at a neighbouring institution in the US, Canada, Latin America, Asia or Europe in order to develop their language skills and cultural understanding. Alternatively, students also have the possibility to teach French in a high school abroad or to complete an internship.

Notable academics

;Philosophy *

Gilles Deleuze Gilles Louis René Deleuze ( , ; 18 January 1925 – 4 November 1995) was a French philosopher who, from the early 1950s until his death in 1995, wrote on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volu ...

François Chatelet François () is a French language, French masculine given name and surname, equivalent to the English name Francis (given name), Francis. People with the given name * Francis I of France, King of France (), known as "the Father and Restorer of ...

Alain Badiou Alain Badiou (; ; born 17 January 1937) is a French philosopher, formerly chair of Philosophy at the École normale supérieure (ENS) and founder of the faculty of Philosophy of the Université de Paris VIII with Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucau ...

* Etienne Balibar * Daniel Bensaïd * Pierre Cassou-Noguès *

Luce Irigaray Luce Irigaray (born 3 May 1930) is a Belgian-born French feminist, philosopher, linguist, psycholinguist, psychoanalyst, and cultural theorist who examined the uses and misuses of language in relation to women. Irigaray's first and most well know ...

Félix Guattari Pierre-Félix Guattari ( , ; 30 April 1930 – 29 August 1992) was a French psychoanalyst, political philosopher, semiotician, social activist, and screenwriter. He co-founded schizoanalysis with Gilles Deleuze, and ecosophy with Arne Næss, ...

Sylvain Lazarus Sylvain Lazarus (born 1943) is a French sociologist, anthropologist and political theorist. He has also written under the pseudonym Paul Sandevince. Lazarus is a professor at the Paris 8 University. Life and work Sylvain Lazarus worked out a theo ...

Jean-François Lyotard Jean-François Lyotard (; ; ; 10 August 1924 – 21 April 1998) was a French philosopher, sociologist, and literary theorist. His interdisciplinary discourse spans such topics as epistemology and communication, the human body, modern art and ...

Antonio Negri Antonio "Toni" Negri (born 1 August 1933) is an Italian Spinozistic- Marxist sociologist and political philosopher, best known for his co-authorship of ''Empire'' and secondarily for his work on Spinoza. Born in Padua, he became a political ...

Jacques Rancière Jacques Rancière (; born 10 June 1940) is a French philosopher, Professor of Philosophy at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris VIII: Vincennes—Saint-Denis. After co-authoring '' ...

* René Schérer ;Psychoanalysis * Bruce Fink (psychoanalyst) *

Serge Leclaire Serge Leclaire (born Serge Liebschutz; 6 July 1924 – 8 August 1994) was a French psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. Initially analyzed by Jacques Lacan, he 'became the first French "Lacanian"'. Subsequently, he developed into 'one of the most respe ...

Jacques-Alain Miller Jacques-Alain Miller (; born 14 February 1944) is a psychoanalyst and writer. He is one of the founder members of the École de la Cause freudienne (School of the Freudian Cause) and the World Association of Psychoanalysis which he presided from ...

François Regnault François Regnault (; born 1938) is a French philosopher, playwright and dramaturg. Also a university instructor and teacher, Regnault was maître de conférences at Paris VIII before his retirement. Among his various writings he is the author, wit ...

* Éric Laurent *

Slavoj Žižek Slavoj Žižek (, ; ; born 21 March 1949) is a Slovenian philosopher, cultural theorist and public intellectual. He is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, visiting professor at New Y ...

;Politics and international relations *

Gilbert Achcar Gilbert Achcar ( ar, جلبير الأشقر; 5 November 1951) is a Lebanese socialist academic and writer. He is a Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University ...

* Josué de Castro * Masri Feki *

Jane Freedman Jane Freedman (born 21 September 1968 in London) is a British–French sociologist and international relations scholar. She is known for her research on issues relating to gender, violence, conflict and migration, including sexual and gender-bas ...

;Economics *

Bernard Maris Bernard Henri Maris (; 23 September 19467 January 2015), also known as "Oncle Bernard", was a French economist, writer and journalist who was also a shareholder in '' Charlie Hebdo'' magazine. He was murdered on 7 January 2015, during the shoot ...

;Communication sciences *

Armand Mattelart Armand Mattelart (born January 8, 1936) is a Belgian sociologist, known as a leftist French scholar. His work deals with media, culture and communication, specially in their historical and international dimensions. Life, experience, and academi ...

;Hypermedia, new media and cyberculture *

Pierre Lévy Pierre Lévy (; born 1956) is a Tunisian-born French philosopher, cultural theorist and media scholar who specializes in the understanding of the cultural and cognitive implications of digital technologies and the phenomenon of human collective ...

;Anthropology *

Alain Bertho Alain Bertho is a French anthropologist, professor at thUniversity of Paris 8 His fields of research are urban anthropology, political anthropology, anthropology of globalization and alter-globalization. Works The globalization of riots In his ...

;Sociology *

Jon Elster Jon Elster (; born 22 February 1940, Oslo) is a Norwegian philosopher and political theorist who holds the Robert K. Merton professorship of Social Science at Columbia University. He received his PhD in social science from the École Normale Supe ...

Michael Löwy Michael Löwy (born 6 May 1938) is a French-Brazilian Marxist sociologist and philosopher. He is emeritus research director in social sciences at the CNRS (French National Center of Scientific Research) and lectures at the ''École des hautes ...

Jean-Claude Passeron Jean-Claude Passeron (born 26 November 1930) is a French sociologist and leader of social science studies. As part of a mixed interdisciplinary team involving sociologists, historians, and anthropologists, he led the magazine ''Enquêtes''. Bio ...

Nicos Poulantzas Nicos Poulantzas ( el, Νίκος Πουλαντζάς ; 21 September 1936 – 3 October 1979) was a Greek-French Marxist political sociologist and philosopher. In the 1970s, Poulantzas was known, along with Louis Althusser, as a leading structu ...

Henri Laborit Henri Laborit (21 November 1914 – 18 May 1995) was a French surgeon, neurobiologist, writer and philosopher. In 1952, Laborit was instrumental in the development of the drug chlorpromazine, published his findings, and convinced three psychiatri ...

(

behavioral biology Ethology is the scientific method, scientific study of animal behaviour, usually with a focus on behaviour under natural conditions, and viewing behaviour as an evolutionarily Adaptive behavior (ecology), adaptive trait. Behaviourism as a t ...

systems thinking Systems thinking is a way of making sense of the complexity of the world by looking at it in terms of wholes and relationships rather than by splitting it down into its parts. It has been used as a way of exploring and developing effective actio ...

) ;Arts *

Maurice Benayoun Maurice Benayoun (aka MoBen or 莫奔) (born 29 March 1957) is a French new-media artist, curator, and theorist based in Paris and Hong Kong. His work employs various media, including video, computer graphics, immersive virtual reality, the In ...

Christine Brooke-Rose Christine Frances Evelyn Brooke-Rose (16 January 1923 – 21 March 2012) was a British writer and literary critic, known principally for her experimental novels.

Christine Buci-Glucksmann Christine Buci-Glucksmann is a French philosopher and Professor Emeritus from University of Paris VIII specializing in the aesthetics of the Baroque and Japan, and computer art. Her best-known work in English is ''Baroque Reason: The Aesthetics of ...

Hélène Cixous Hélène Cixous (; ; born 5 June 1937) is a French writer, playwright and literary critic. She is known for her experimental writing style and great versatility as a writer and thinker, her work dealing with multiple genres: theater, literary an ...

Edmond Couchot Edmond Couchot (16 August 1932 – 26 December 2020) was a French digital artist and art theoretician who taught at the University Paris VIII. Life and work Couchot was a Doctor of aesthetics in the visual arts. From 1982-2000 he headed the depar ...

Frank Popper Frank Popper (17 April 1918 – 12 July 2020) was a Czech-born French-British historian of art and technology and Professor Emeritus of Aesthetics and the Science of Art at the University of Paris VIII. He was decorated with the medal of the Lé ...

;Ethnomusicology *

Giovanna Marini Giovanna Marini (born Giovanna Salviucci; 19 January 1937) is an Italian singer-songwriter and researcher of ethnomusicology. Biography She was born in Rome in a family of musicians. In 1959 she obtained her diploma in classical guitar at the C ...

Info archive on musicaitalia.free.fr
(

DOC DOC, Doc, doc or DoC may refer to: In film and television * ''Doc'' (2001 TV series), a 2001–2004 PAX series * ''Doc'' (1975 TV series), a 1975–1976 CBS sitcom * "D.O.C." (''Lost''), a television episode * ''Doc'' (film), a 1971 Wester ...

file) ;Linguistics * Martine Abdallah-Pretceille *

Nicolas Ruwet Nicolas Ruwet (December 31, 1932 – November 15, 2001) was a linguist, literary critic and musical analyst. He was involved with the development of generative grammar.

* Maurice Gross * Jean Dubois *

Richard S. Kayne Richard Stanley Kayne is Professor of Linguistics in the Linguistics Department at New York University. Born in 1944, after receiving an A.B. in mathematics from Columbia College, New York City in 1964, he studied linguistics at the Massachus ...

;University Presidents * Joseph E. Aoun

Notable alumni

;Royalty *

Elia, Crown Princess of Albania Elia, Princess of Albania (''née'' Zaharia; born 8 February 1983) is an Albanian actress, former singer and wife of Leka, Prince of Albania. They married on 8 October 2016 in Tirana. Early life and education She was born on 8 February 1983 in Ti ...

References

External links

Official website (english)

Papers and documents related to Paris VIII University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Paris VIII, University University of Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis Educational institutions established in 1969 1969 establishments in France Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis Universities descended from the University of Paris