Paris 8 University (), or usually the University of Vincennes in Saint-Denis or Paris 8, is a

public university A public university, state university, or public college is a university or college that is State ownership, owned by the state or receives significant funding from a government. Whether a national university is considered public varies from o ...

in the Greater Paris, France. Once part of the historic

University of Paris The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...

, it is now an autonomous public institution. It is based on several campuses, mainly in Saint-Denis, as well as in

Aubervilliers Aubervilliers () is a communes of France, commune in the Seine-Saint-Denis departments of France, department, Île-de-France regions of France, region, northeastern suburbs of Paris, France. Geography Localisation Aubervilliers is one of th ...

and the north of

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

on the Condorcet Campus, which it has initiated with nine other universities and public institutions since 2008 and which will be inaugurated in 2019. It is one of the thirteen successors of 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, as a campus of the

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. Vincennes is famous for its castle: the Château de Vincennes. It is next to but does not include the ...

. 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 (, ) is an urban university campus 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, t ...

, where the street fighting of 1968 had taken place.

History

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

. In 1971, it gained full university status, thus allowing it to award its own degrees, and renamed University of Vincennes, then University of 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 The Île-de-France (; ; ) is the most populous of the eighteen regions of France, with an official estimated population of 12,271,794 residents on 1 January 2023. Centered on the capital Paris, it is located in the north-central part of the cou ...

region.

Foundation

On Monday 5th of August 1968, the Dean of the

, Raymond Las Vergnas, proposed the creation of a new university to Edgar Faure, the Minister of National Education. Las Vergnas was accompanied by professors Pierre Dommergues, Bernard Cassen and a young female lecturer in English,

Hélène Cixous Hélène Cixous (; ; born 5 June 1937) is a French writer, playwright and Literary criticism, literary critic. During her academic career, she was primarily associated with the Centre universitaire de Vincennes (today's University of Paris VIII) ...

. Two days later, Cixous sent a telegram to her friend

Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida;Peeters (2013), pp. 12–13. See also 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was a French Algerian philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in a number of his texts, ...

, asking him to be his advisor. Through Derrida, Cixous recruited

Georges Canguilhem Georges Canguilhem (; ; 4 June 1904 – 11 September 1995) was a French philosopher and physician who specialized in epistemology and the philosophy of science (in particular, philosophy of biology, biology). Life and work Canguilhem entered t ...

and

Roland Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 25 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popu ...

, who became official advisors.

Tumultuous years

As soon as it opened, the University of 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' 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 known for its radical philosophy department, with many faculty considering themselves communist which was at the time headed by

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault ( , ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French History of ideas, historian of ideas and Philosophy, philosopher who was also an author, Literary criticism, literary critic, Activism, political activist, and teacher. Fo ...

, 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 most consequential scandal of this department emerged 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 Sigmund Freud, Freud", Lacan gave The Seminars of Jacques Lacan, year ...

's daughter Judith Miller. 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 sabotage it from within.

Recent reforms

Since the turmoil in the late 1960s, the University of Vincennes 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, to the north of Paris. The university's capacity of 24,000 students per year makes "Paris VIII" an important university with internationally recognized departments in

Philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

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 ...

, Cinema Arts,

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 differ ...

, and

Feminist Studies ''Feminist Studies'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering women's studies that was established in 1972. It is an independent nonprofit publication housed at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland. Besides scholarly artic ...

. In 1992 and 1998, the University of Paris-VIII created two university technical institutes (in French: ''IUT''), in Tremblay-en-France and Montreuil. In 2008, the university, along with seven other humanities and social sciences institutions, launched a campus project to the north of Paris, with the aim of bringing together on the same site a common research facility in the humanities and social sciences. In 2009, this became the Condorcet Campus, which opens in 2019. In 2024, the university inaugurated the renovation of Building C, marking the first energy-efficient renovation of a university service building in France using the Energiesprong method. This initiative aims to make the building fully energy self-sufficient for all its uses, with a 20-year performance guarantee.

Academics

The university offers over a hundred undergraduate, graduate and diploma courses. It is particularly well known for its political science program 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 land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...

, the Beijing Film Academy,

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodism, Methodists with its original campus in Newbury (town), Vermont, Newbur ...

, the Free University of Berlin, the Humboldt University of Berlin, the University of Vienna as well as since 2016 the University of Rojava. 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 volumes o ...

* François Chatelet *

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 Foucault ...

* Daniel Bensaïd * Alain Brossat * 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 examines the uses and misuses of language in relation to women. Irigaray's first and most ...

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

* Sylvain Lazarus *

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 p ...

Antonio Negri Antonio Negri (; ; 1 August 1933 – 16 December 2023) was an Italian political philosopher known as one of the most prominent theorists of autonomism, as well as for his co-authorship of ''Empire (Hardt and Negri book), Empire'' with Michae ...

* Jacques Rancière * René Schérer Psychoanalysis * Bruce Fink (psychoanalyst) *

* Serge Leclaire * Jacques-Alain Miller * François Regnault * Éric Laurent *

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

Politics and international relations * Gilbert Achcar * Josué de Castro * Jane Freedman * Meir Masri Economics * Bernard Maris Communication sciences * Armand Mattelart New media *

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

Anthropology * Alain Bertho Sociology * Michael Löwy * Jean-Claude Passeron *

Nicos Poulantzas Nicos Poulantzas ( ; 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 structural Marxist; while at first a Leni ...

* Henri Laborit ( behavioral biology,

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.Anderson, Virginia, & Johnson, Lauren (1997). ''Systems Thinking Ba ...

) Arts * Maurice Benayoun * Jean-Louis Boissier * Christine Brooke-Rose *

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 ...

* Edmond Couchot * Frank Popper Music * Daniel Charles * Éveline Plicque-Andréani * Costin Miereanu * Daniel Caux Ethnomusicology * Giovanna MariniInfo archive on musicaitalia.free.fr
( DOC file) Linguistics * Martine Abdallah-Pretceille * Nicolas Ruwet * Maurice Gross * Jean Dubois * Richard S. Kayne University presidents * Joseph E. Aoun

Notable alumni

; * Elia, Crown Princess of Albania (born 1983) * Clémentine Shakembo Kamanga (born 1952), Congolese diplomat and writer

References

External links

Official website (english)

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