Curated playlist
École normale supérieure (Paris) alumni
- Jean BeaufretJean Beaufret was born on the 22nd of May 1907 in Auzances, a small town in central France, and he would spend his life building a bridge between French philosophy and one of Germany's most contested thinkers. He died on the 7th of August…
- Jean-Paul SartreJean-Paul Sartre was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature, and he refused it. He said a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution. The prize was announced on the 22nd of October 1964. Nine days earlier, on the…
- Michel FoucaultMichel Foucault was born on the 15th of October 1926 in Poitiers, France, into a family where a surgeon father expected his son to follow in his footsteps. That son became one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century instead.…
- Émile DurkheimÉmile Durkheim was born on the 15th of April 1858 in Épinal, Lorraine, France, the son of a rabbi and the grandson of a rabbi, and the great-grandson of one too. His family's rabbinical lineage stretched back eight generations. Nobody…
- Esther DufloEsther Duflo was born on the 25th of October 1972 in Paris, and by the age of 46 she had become the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. She shared that prize in 2019 with her husband Abhijit Banerjee…
- Louis PasteurOn the 6th of July 1885, Louis Pasteur faced a choice that could have ended in his prosecution. A 9-year-old boy named Joseph Meister had been badly mauled by a rabid dog. Pasteur held a rabies vaccine he had tested in dogs, but he held no…
- Jean GiraudouxJean Giraudoux died in Paris on the 31st of January 1944, at the age of 61, under circumstances that have never been fully explained. There has been speculation that he was poisoned. He is buried in the Cimetière de Passy. For a man whose…
- Louis AlthusserLouis Althusser was born on the 16th of October 1918 in Birmendreïs, a town near Algiers in French Algeria, and he died on the 22nd of October 1990 in a psychiatric institution. Between those two dates lies one of the most turbulent…
- Georges DumézilGeorges Dumézil was born in Paris on the 4th of March 1898, the son of a highly educated general in the French Army. By the time he died in the same city on the 11th of October 1986, he had published more than seventy-five books, mastered…
- Victor DuruyVictor Duruy was born in Paris on the 10th of September 1811, the son of a factory worker, and his family expected him to follow his father into the trade. He had other plans. Duruy passed through the Ecole Normale Superieure with such…
- Claude RibbeClaude Ribbe was born in Paris on the 13th of October 1954, and he grew up to become one of France's most provocative voices on the history of colonialism and racial justice. He trained at the Ecole normale superieure, one of France's most…
- Hippolyte TaineHippolyte Taine was born on the 21st of April 1828 in Vouziers, a small town in the Ardennes, and he would grow up to reshape how an entire civilization understood its own literature, history, and revolution. Maurice Baring, writing in the…