Michel de Certeau

The Reverend
Michel de Certeau
SJ
The Reverend Michel de Certeau SJ
Born	Michel Jean Emmanuel de La Barge de Certeau; 17 May 1925; Chambéry, Savoie, France
Died	9 January 1986 (aged 60); Paris, France
Academic background
Education	Collège de France; University of Grenoble (B.A., 1950); Séminaire provincial de Lyon Saint-Irénée (Licentiate, 1950); École pratique des hautes études; Sorbonne (Ph.D., 1960);
Doctoral advisor	Jean Orcibal
Academic work
Institutions	University of Paris 8 (1968–1971); University of Paris 7 (1971–1977); University of Geneva (1977–1978); University of California, San Diego (1978–1984); EHESS (1984–1986);
Main interests	History of religion; Psychoanalysis; Philosophy; Sociology;
Notable works	The Capture of Speech (1968); The Possession at Loudun (1970); The Writing of History (1975); The Practice of Everyday Life (1980);

Michel Jean Emmanuel de La Barge de Certeau SJ (French: [sɛʁto]; 17 May 1925 – 9 January 1986) was a French Jesuit Catholic priest and scholar whose work combined history, psychoanalysis, philosophy, and the social sciences as well as hermeneutics, semiotics, ethnology, and religion. He was known as a philosopher of everyday life and was widely regarded as a historian with interests ranging from travelogues of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in The Mystic Fable (1982) to contemporary urban life in The Practice of Everyday Life (1980).

He participated in major French intellectual movements including ressourcement theology, Lacanian psychoanalysis, Greimasian semiotics, and nouvelle histoire. He first came to public prominence with contemporary articles on the French May 68 protests that were collected in The Capture of Speech (1968).