Collège_de_France,_place_Marcelin-Berthelot,_Paris_5e

The Collège de France (), formerly known as the ''Collège Royal'' or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by

François I Francis I (french: François Ier; frm, Francoys; 12 September 1494 – 31 March 1547) was King of France from 1515 until his death in 1547. He was the son of Charles, Count of Angoulême, and Louise of Savoy. He succeeded his first cousin once ...

, is a higher education and research establishment ('' grand établissement'') in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. It is located in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

near

La Sorbonne The University of Paris (french: link=no, Université de Paris), metonymically known as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, active from 1150 to 1970, with the exception between 1793 and 1806 under the French Revolution ...

. The Collège de France is considered to be France's most prestigious research establishment. Research and teaching are closely linked at the Collège de France, whose ambition is to teach "the knowledge that is being built up in all fields of literature, science and the arts". It offers high-level courses that are free, non-degree-granting and

open Open or OPEN may refer to: Music * Open (band), Australian pop/rock band * The Open (band), English indie rock band * Open (Blues Image album), ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969 * Open (Gotthard album), ''Open'' (Gotthard album), 1999 * Open (C ...

to all without condition or registration. This gives it a special place in the French intellectual landscape.

Overview

The Collège is considered to be France's most prestigious research establishment. As of 2021, 21 Nobel Prize winners and 9 Fields Medalists have been affiliated with the Collège. It does not grant degrees. Each professor is required to give lectures where attendance is free and open to anyone. Professors, about 50 in number, are chosen by the professors themselves, from a variety of disciplines, in both

science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence ...

and the

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at t ...

. The motto of the Collège is ''Docet Omnia'',

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

for "It teaches everything"; its goal is to "teach science in the making" and can be best summed up by Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phrase: "Not acquired truths, but the idea of freely-executed research" which is inscribed in golden letters above the main hall. It is an associate member of University PSL. Cour_intérieure_Collège_de_France,_Paris_5e

Cour_intérieure_Collège_de_France,_Paris_5e

The Collège has research laboratories and one of the best research libraries of Europe, with sections focusing on

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

with rare books,

social sciences Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of so ...

and also

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the elements that make up matter to the compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions: their composition, structure, proper ...

and

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which ...

. As of June 2009, over 650 audio podcasts of Collège de France lectures are available on iTunes. Some are also available in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

and Chinese. Similarly, the Collège de France's website hosts several videos of classes. The classes are followed by various students, from senior researchers to PhD or master students, or even bachelor students. Moreover, the "leçons inaugurales" (first lesson) are important events in Paris intellectual and social life and attract a very large public of curious Parisians.

History

The Collège was established by

King Francis I of France Francis I (french: François Ier; frm, Francoys; 12 September 1494 – 31 March 1547) was King of France from 1515 until his death in 1547. He was the son of Charles, Count of Angoulême, and Louise of Savoy. He succeeded his first cousin once ...

, modeled after the Collegium Trilingue in

Louvain Leuven (, ) or Louvain (, , ; german: link=no, Löwen ) is the capital and largest city of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located about east of Brussels. The municipality itself comprises the historic c ...

, at the urging of

Guillaume Budé Guillaume Budé (; Latinized as Guilielmus Budaeus; 1468 – 1540) was a French scholar and humanist. He was involved in the founding of Collegium Trilingue, which later became the Collège de France. Budé was also the first keeper of the ...

. Of

humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "human ...

inspiration, the school was established as an alternative to the Sorbonne to promote such disciplines as

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

(the first teacher being the celebrated scholar Janus Lascaris) and

Mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

. Initially called ''Collège royal'', and later ''Collège des trois langues'' (Latin, ancient Greek and Hebrew), ''Collège national'', and ''Collège impérial'', it was named Collège de France in 1870. In 2010, it became a founding associate of PSL Research University (a community of Parisian universities).

Administrators

* 1800-1823: Louis Lefèvre‑Gineau * 1824-1838:

Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy Antoine Isaac, Baron Silvestre de Sacy (; 21 September 175821 February 1838), was a French nobleman, linguist and orientalist. His son, Ustazade Silvestre de Sacy, became a journalist. Life and works Early life Silvestre de Sacy was born in Par ...

* 1838-1840: Louis Thénard * 1840-1848: Jean-Antoine Letronne * 1848-1852:

Jules Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire Jules Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire (19 August 1805 – 24 November 1895) was a French philosopher, journalist, statesman, and possible illegitimate son of Napoleon I of France. Biography Jules was born in Paris. Marie Belloc Lowndes, in th ...

* 1852-1853: Xavier de Portets * 1853-1854: Jacques Rinn * 1854-1873:

Stanislas Julien Stanislas Aignan Julien (13 April 179714 February 1873) was a French sinologist who served as the Chair of Chinese at the Collège de France for over 40 years and was one of the most academically respected sinologists in French scholarship. J ...

* 1873-1883: Édouard René de Laboulaye * 1883-1892:

Ernest Renan Joseph Ernest Renan (; 27 February 18232 October 1892) was a French Orientalist and Semitic scholar, expert of Semitic languages and civilizations, historian of religion, philologist, philosopher, biblical scholar, and critic. He wrote in ...

* 1892-1894: Gaston Boissier * 1894-1903:

Gaston Paris Bruno Paulin Gaston Paris (; 9 August 1839 – 5 March 1903) was a French literary historian, philologist, and scholar specialized in Romance studies and medieval French literature. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901, 19 ...

* 1903-1911: Émile Levasseur * 1911-1929: Maurice Croiset * 1929-1936:

Joseph Bédier Joseph Bédier (28 January 1864 – 29 August 1938) was a French writer and scholar and historian of medieval France. Biography Bédier was born in Paris, France, to Adolphe Bédier, a lawyer of Breton origin, and spent his childhood in Réunio ...

* 1937-1955: Edmond Faral * 1955-1965: Marcel Bataillon * 1966-1974:

Étienne Wolff Étienne Wolff (Auxerre, 12 February 1904 – Paris, 18 November 1996) was a French biologist, specialising in experimental and teratological embryology. He led the Société zoologique de France from 1958 and was elected to the French Academy o ...

* 1974-1980: Alain Horeau * 1980-1991:

Yves Laporte Yves may refer to: * Yves, Charente-Maritime, a commune of the Charente-Maritime department in France * Yves (given name), including a list of people with the name * ''Yves'' (single album), a single album by Loona * ''Yves'' (film), a 2019 Fre ...

* 1991-1997: André Miquel * 1997-2000:

Gilbert Dagron Gilbert Dagron (January 26, 1932 - August 4, 2015, Paris, France) was a French historian, Byzantine scholar, professor at the College de France (1975-2001), president of the International Association for Byzantine Studies, member of the Academy o ...

* 2000-2006: Jacques Glowinski * 2006-2012: Pierre Corvol * 2012-2015:

Serge Haroche Serge Haroche (born 11 September 1944) is a French-Moroccan physicist who was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize for Physics jointly with David J. Wineland for "ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual q ...

* 2015-2019: Alain Prochiantz * Since 2019:

Thomas Römer Thomas Christian Römer (born 13 December 1955, in Mannheim) is a German-born Swiss biblical scholar, exegete, philologist, professor, and Reformed minister. After teaching at the University of Geneva, he became professor of the Old Testament a ...

Faculty

The faculty of the Collège de France currently comprises fifty-two Professors, elected by the Professors themselves from among Francophone scholars in subjects including mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, history, archaeology, linguistics, oriental studies, philosophy, the social sciences and other fields. Two chairs are reserved for foreign scholars who are invited to give lectures. Notable faculty members include

, awarded with

Nobel Prize in Physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...

in 2012. Notably, 8 Fields medal winners have been affiliated with the College. Past faculty include: *

Raymond Aron Raymond Claude Ferdinand Aron (; 14 March 1905 – 17 October 1983) was a French philosopher, sociologist, political scientist, historian and journalist, one of France's most prominent thinkers of the 20th century. Aron is best known for his 19 ...

Jean François Boissonade de Fontarabie Jean François Boissonade de Fontarabie (12 August 17748 September 1857) was a French classical scholar. Life He was born in Paris. In 1792 he entered the public service during the administration of General Dumouriez. Driven out in 1795, he was ...

* Etienne Baluze *

Roland Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western pop ...

* Simon Baudichon * Émile Benveniste *

Henri Bergson Henri-Louis Bergson (; 18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a French philosopherHenri Bergson. 2014. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 13 August 2014, from https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/61856/Henri-Bergson Le Roy, ...

* Claude Bernard *

Marcelin Berthelot Pierre Eugène Marcellin Berthelot (; 25 October 1827 – 18 March 1907) was a French chemist and Republican politician noted for the ThomsenBerthelot principle of thermochemistry. He synthesized many organic compounds from inorganic substanc ...

* Yves Bonnefoy *

Pierre Boulez Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war Western classical music. Born in Mo ...

Pierre Bourdieu Pierre Bourdieu (; 1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was a French sociologist and public intellectual. Bourdieu's contributions to the sociology of education, the theory of sociology, and sociology of aesthetics have achieved wide influence ...

Jean-François Champollion Jean-François Champollion (), also known as Champollion ''le jeune'' ('the Younger'; 23 December 17904 March 1832), was a French philologist and orientalist, known primarily as the decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs and a founding figure in t ...

Jean-Pierre Changeux Jean-Pierre Changeux (; born 6 April 1936) is a French neuroscientist known for his research in several fields of biology, from the structure and function of proteins (with a focus on the allosteric proteins), to the early development of the ne ...

Roger Chartier Roger Chartier, (born December 9, 1945 in Lyon), is a French historian and historiographer who is part of the Annales school. He works on the history of books, publishing and reading. He teaches at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Soc ...

Anne Cheng Anne Cheng (; born 11 July 1955) is a French Sinologist who teaches at the Collège de France and specializes in Chinese history and the history of Chinese philosophy. Pablo Ariel Blitstein, the author of "A new debate about alterity," descr ...

Anne Cheng Biographie
" Collège de France. Retrieved on 11 December 2013. * Claude Cohen-Tannoudji * Alain Connes * Yves Coppens *

Georges Cuvier Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, Baron Cuvier (; 23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuvier was a major figure in na ...

* Marie Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville * Jean Darcet *

Jacques-Arsène d'Arsonval Jacques-Arsène d'Arsonval (8 June 1851 – 31 December 1940) was a French physician, physicist and inventor of the moving-coil D'Arsonval galvanometer and the thermocouple ammeter. D'Arsonval was an important contributor to the emerging field of ...

* Pierre-Gilles de Gennes * Émile Deschanel *

Georges Duby Georges Duby (7 October 1919 – 3 December 1996) was a French historian who specialised in the social and economic history of the Middle Ages. He ranks among the most influential medieval historians of the twentieth century and was one of Fran ...

Georges Dumézil Georges Edmond Raoul Dumézil (4 March 189811 October 1986) was a French philologist, linguist, and religious studies scholar who specialized in comparative linguistics and mythology. He was a professor at Istanbul University, École pratique d ...

Lucien Febvre Lucien Paul Victor Febvre (, ; 22 July 1878 – 11 September 1956) was a French historian best known for the role he played in establishing the Annales School of history. He was the initial editor of the ''Encyclopédie française'' together wit ...

* Oronce Fine *

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault (, ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and ho ...

* Ferdinand André Fouqué * Etienne Fourmont *

Marc Fumaroli Marc Fumaroli (10 June 1932 – 24 June 2020) was a French historian and essayist who was widely respected as an advocate for French literature and culture. While born in Marseille, Fumaroli grew up in the Moroccan city of Fez, and served in th ...

* Jean-Baptiste Gail * Charles Gide * Étienne Gilson *

Jerzy Grotowski Jerzy Marian Grotowski (; 11 August 1933 – 14 January 1999) was a Polish theatre director and theorist whose innovative approaches to acting, training and theatrical production have significantly influenced theatre today. He was born in Rze ...

* Martial Gueroult *

Ian Hacking Ian MacDougall Hacking (born February 18, 1936) is a Canadian philosopher specializing in the philosophy of science. Throughout his career, he has won numerous awards, such as the Killam Prize for the Humanities and the Balzan Prize, and been ...

* Eugène Auguste Ernest Havet * Barthélemy d'Herbelot * Françoise Héritier * Frédéric Joliot *

Alfred Jost Alfred Jost (1916–1991) was a French endocrinologist, and an early researcher in the field of fetal endocrinology. He is known for his discovery of the Müllerian inhibitor, now called anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) or Müllerian inhibiting ...

* René Labat * Edouard Rene Lefebvre de Laboulaye *

Sylvestre François Lacroix Sylvestre François Lacroix (28 April 176524 May 1843) was a French mathematician. Life He was born in Paris, and was raised in a poor family who still managed to obtain a good education for their son. Lacroix's path to mathematics started wi ...

* René Laennec *

Paul Langevin Paul Langevin (; ; 23 January 1872 – 19 December 1946) was a French physicist who developed Langevin dynamics and the Langevin equation. He was one of the founders of the ''Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes'', an ant ...

Henri Lebesgue Henri Léon Lebesgue (; June 28, 1875 – July 26, 1941) was a French mathematician known for his theory of integration, which was a generalization of the 17th-century concept of integration—summing the area between an axis and the curve of ...

René Leriche Henri Marie René Leriche (12 October 1879 – 28 December 1955) was a French vascular surgeon and physiologist. He was a specialist in pain, vascular surgery and the sympathetic trunk. He sensitized many who were mutilated in the first World w ...

* Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie *

Claude Lévi-Strauss Claude Lévi-Strauss (, ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social Anthr ...

* André Lichnerowicz * Alfred Loisy * Edmond Malinvaud * Henri Maspero * Louis Massignon *

Marcel Mauss Marcel Mauss (; 10 May 1872 – 10 February 1950) was a French sociologist and anthropologist known as the "father of French ethnology". The nephew of Émile Durkheim, Mauss, in his academic work, crossed the boundaries between sociology and ...

* Maurice Merleau-Ponty *

Jules Michelet Jules Michelet (; 21 August 1798 – 9 February 1874) was a French historian and an author on other topics whose major work was a history of France and its culture. His aphoristic style emphasized his anti-clerical republicanism. In Michelet' ...

* Adam Mickiewicz * Jean-Baptiste Morin *

Alexis Paulin Paris Alexis Paulin Paris (25 March 180013 February 1881) was a French scholar and author. Life Paris was born at Avenay (Marne). He studied classics in Reims and law in Paris. He published in 1824 an ''Apologie pour l'école romantique'' (''In Def ...

* Paul Pelliot * François Pétis de la Croix * Guillaume Postel * Edgar Quinet * Petrus Ramus * Henri Victor Regnault * Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat * Louis Robert *

Jean-Baptiste Say Jean-Baptiste Say (; 5 January 1767 – 15 November 1832) was a liberal French economist and businessman who argued in favor of competition, free trade and lifting restraints on business. He is best known for Say's law—also known as the law o ...

* Victor Scialac * Jean-Pierre Serre * François Simiand * Gabriel Sionita *

André Vaillant André Vaillant (November 3, 1890 – April 23, 1977), was a French linguist, philologist and grammarian who also specialized in Slavic languages. He was born in Soissons. After studying at École Normale Supérieure in Paris, he became professor ...

* Paul Valéry * François Vatable * Jean-Pierre Vernant *

Claire Voisin Claire Voisin (born 4 March 1962) is a French mathematician known for her work in algebraic geometry. She is a member of the French Academy of Sciences and holds the chair of Algebraic Geometry at the Collège de France. Work She is noted for he ...

* Jules Vuillemin * Harald Weinrich * Jean-Christophe Yoccoz * Jean YoyotteNécrologie de M. Jean Yoyotte (1927-2009) par Christiane Zivie-Coche
/ref> * Don Zagier

References

External links

Collège de France website
English home page
Alphabetic list of all professors since establishment in 1530
{{DEFAULTSORT:College De France Education in Paris Grands établissements 1530 establishments in France Educational institutions established in the 1530s Buildings and structures in the 5th arrondissement of Paris