Michel Foucault (IPA pronunciation: [miʃel fuko]; English-speakers' pronunciation varies) (October 15, 1926 – June 25, 1984) was a French philosopher. He held a chair at the Collège de France, which he gave the title "The History of Systems of Thought." His writings have had an enormous impact: Foucault's influence extends across the humanities and social sciences and into applied and professional areas of study. Foucault is known for his critical studies of various social institutions, most notably psychiatry, medicine, parameters of educational timeframes, and the prison system, and also for his work on the history of sexuality. His work concerning power and the relation between power and knowledge, as well as his ideas concerning "discourse" in relation to the history of Western thought, have been widely discussed and applied. His work is often described as postmodernist or post-structuralist by commentators and critics; during the 1960s, however, he was more often associated with the structuralist movement. Although he was initially happy with this description, he later emphasised his distance from the structuralist approach, and he always unequivocally rejected the 'post-structuralist' and 'postmodernist' labels. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.