Daniel Defert (born 10 September 1937) is a French sociologist and HIV/ AIDS activist. Partner to the late Michel Foucault, Defert co-founded France's first AIDS advocacy group,

AIDES Aides may refer to: * AIDES, a French non-governmental organization assisting people with HIV/AIDS * ''Aides'' (skipper), a genus of skippers of family Hesperiidae * Aides (tax), a French customs duty during the time of Louis XIV * Hades, a Gree ...

, following Foucault's death from complications related to the disease. Defert is the heir to Foucault's estate.

Early life

Daniel Defert was born on 10 September 1937. He graduated from the

École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Sav ...

. He earned the agrégation in philosophy. Defert met Foucault while he was a philosophy student at the

University of Clermont-Ferrand The University of Clermont-Ferrand was officially founded in 1896, by merging of two existing faculties (Literature and Sciences) and a medical school. In 1976, due to political issues, the University split between University Clermont-Ferrand I - ...

in France and their relationship lasted from 1963 until Foucault's death in 1984.

Early academic career

A professor of sociology, Daniel Defert has been assistant (1969–1970), maître-assistant (1971–1985), then maître de conférence (from 1985) at the Centre Universitaire of Vincennes, which became in 1972 Université Paris VIII Vincennes.

AIDS research and activism

After the death of his partner Michel Foucault from complications related to AIDS, Defert founded

, the first AIDS awareness organization in France. The name invokes the French word for "help" as well as the English acronym for the disease (the French acronym is SIDA). Defert served as president of AIDES from 1984 to 1991. He has been a member of the scientific committee for human sciences of the International Conference on AIDS (1986–94); member of the World Commission for AIDS (

World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of ...

) (1988–93); member of the National Committee for AIDS (1989–98), of the Global AIDS Policy Coalition of

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 high ...

(1994–1997), and of the French Haut Comité de la Santé Publique (from 1998). Defert is author of numerous articles in the domain of ethno-iconography and

public health Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the det ...

. He has been awarded the decoration of ''Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur'' and received the Alexander Onassis prize for the creation of AIDES in 1998.

Foucault estate

After Foucault's death, Defert inherited his estate despite the fact that their partnership preceded French government recognition of gay couples through civil unions (1999) or

marriage Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between ...

(2013) and Foucault left no official will; however Foucault had written a letter indicating his intention to bequeath his apartment and all its contents, which included his archive and corrected proofs for an unpublished manuscript, to Defert. Other family members deferred to Foucault's wishes, but without government recognition, Defert, like other surviving partners in a similar position, was still subject to much higher inheritance taxes than he would have been as a recognized family member. It was Foucault's death from AIDS, a disease about which little was known at the time, that led Defert to enter the field of AIDS activism. Defert co-edited, with François Ewald, volume 4 of '' Dits et Ecrits'' of Michel Foucault (1994), a posthumous collection of Foucault's writing. In 2013, Defert sold for €3.8m ($4.0m, May 2022) Foucault's archives to France's national library, making the material available to researchers; subsequently the family, which owns the literary rights, elected to publish the manuscript (''Confessions of the Flesh'', 2018, the fourth and final volume of Foucault's ''

History of Sexuality The social construction of human sexuality and sexual behavior—along with its taboos, regulation, and social and political impact—has had a profound effect on the various cultures of the world since prehistoric times. The study of the hi ...

''), despite Foucault's instruction that no work be published posthumously. Defert explained the decision that after the material became available to researchers with the credentials to acquire a reader card at the national library, Defert and others close to Foucault felt that access should be either available "to everyone or no one". Additionally, many previous posthumous works had already been published, and Defert felt this new addition did not make any encroachment on Foucault's intimate life, but strictly contributed to the corpus of his intellectual contributions; by contrast, the letters exchanged between the two of them, Defert said in 2012, he intended to "take to his grave."

References

External links

AIDES official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Defert 1937 births Living people ENS Fontenay-Saint-Cloud-Lyon alumni University of Paris faculty Harvard University people French sociologists French activists HIV/AIDS activists Michel Foucault LGBT scientists from France Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur LGBT academics