Michel Foucault in Hamburg

Stuart Elden reproduced the plaque about the stay of Foucault in Hamburg, with a translation by Melissa Pawelski:

As Director of the Institut Français lived and worked in this building from October 1959 until September 1960 the French philosopher
Michel Foucault
(1926-1984)
He organised for the Institute a wide-ranging cultural programme with lectures, film, theatre and music nights, readings and official receptions. Foucault brought “L’école des veuves” by Jean Cocteau to the stage, received amongst others Roland Barthes and Alain Robbe-Grillet as his guests. His courses for the University of Hamburg took place in this building too. Foucault also started his explorations of the city and his wanderings through the (gay) district of St. Pauli. He finished the manuscript of his first great book “Histoire de la folie” during this year in Hamburg as well as his French translation of Kant’s “Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht” (1798). Foucault’s stay in Hamburg marks the end of his years of doctoral research and time spent abroad in the first instance; it was the year of his public breakthrough in France, which was followed by a world-wide career.

Another good reference on Elden's text is an article about the stay of Foucault in Hamburg.