Foucault's archives are vast; yet the largest collections are situated in Paris at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF). Since 2019, I have been working through Foucault's archived drafts, reading notes, and correspondances, in order to tell the story of his last decade. Part of that story is the central role that Christianity places in his History of Sexuality series and the developing genealogy of modern subjectivity.
In this talk, I'll give a breakdown of (1) what we find in the six different parts of the massive BnF archives and (2) how we can start to make sense of the role of "religion" (typically isomorophic with Christianity, lamentably). One of the few people to consult all six parts (NAF 28730, 28284, 28803, 28804, 29005, and 29070) of the archives, I want to share how the disciplinary strategies in religious studies are particularly necessary for analyzing Foucault's historiographical and conceptual moves.