Blaise Pascal University in the context of "Vichy"

Paul-Michel Foucault (UK: /ˈfuːkoʊ/ FOO-koh, US: /fuːˈkoʊ/ foo-KOH; French: [pɔl miʃɛl fuko]; 15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984) was a French historian of ideas and philosopher, who was also an author, literary critic, political activist, and teacher. Foucault's theories primarily addressed the relationships between power versus knowledge and liberty, and he analyzed how they are used as a form of social control through multiple institutions. Though often cited as a structuralist and postmodernist, Foucault rejected these labels and sought to critique authority without limits on himself. His thought has influenced academics within a large number of contrasting areas of study, with this especially including those working in anthropology, communication studies, criminology, cultural studies, feminism, literary theory, psychology, and sociology. His efforts against homophobia and racial prejudice as well as against other ideological doctrines have also shaped research into critical theory and Marxism–Leninism alongside other topics.

Born in Poitiers, France, into an upper-middle-class family, Foucault was educated at the Lycée Henri-IV, at the École Normale Supérieure, where he developed an interest in philosophy and came under the influence of his tutors Jean Hyppolite and Louis Althusser, and at the University of Paris (Sorbonne), where he earned degrees in philosophy and psychology. After several years as a cultural diplomat abroad, he returned to France and published his first major book, The History of Madness (1961). After obtaining work between 1960 and 1966 at the University of Clermont-Ferrand, he produced The Birth of the Clinic (1963) and The Order of Things (1966), publications that displayed his increasing involvement with structuralism, from which he later distanced himself. These first three histories exemplified a historiographical technique Foucault was developing, which he called "archaeology".

The University of Clermont-Ferrand was officially founded in 1896, by merging of two existing faculties (Literature and Sciences) and a medical school.

In 1976, due to political issues, the University split between University Clermont-Ferrand I - University of Auvergne and University Clermont-Ferrand II - Blaise Pascal University; they latter remerge in Clermont Auvergne University in 2017.

The Acasta Gneiss Complex, also called the Acasta Gneiss, is a body of felsic to ultramafic Archean basement rocks, gneisses, that form the northwestern edge of the Slave Craton in the Northwest Territories, Canada, about 300 km (190 mi) north of Yellowknife, Canada. This geologic complex consists largely of tonalitic and granodioritic gneisses and lesser amounts of mafic and ultramafic gneisses. It underlies and is largely concealed by thin, patchy cover of Quaternary glacial sediments over an area of about 13,000 km (5,000 sq mi). The Acasta Gneiss Complex contains fragments of the oldest known crust and record of more than a billion years (>4.0–2.9 Ga) of magmatism and metamorphism. The Acasta Gneiss Complex is exposed in a set of anticlinoriums within the foreland fold and thrust belt of the Paleoproterozoic Wopmay Orogen.

The University of Auvergne (Université d'Auvergne), also known as “Universite d'Auvergne Clermont-Ferrand I” or Clermont-Ferrand I, was a French public university, based in Clermont-Ferrand, in the region of Auvergne. It was under the Academy of Clermont-Ferrand. It was the head of PRES Clermont Université consortium; PRES being the league of elite universities of France. On 1 January 2017, the university merged with Blaise Pascal University to form the University Clermont Auvergne.

The Université d’Auvergne was founded in 1519 and as such in 1806 as a medical school. It became the Université d’Auvergne Clermont-Ferrand 1 on March 16, 1976.

Clermont Auvergne University (French: Université Clermont Auvergne) is a public research university with its main campus in Clermont-Ferrand, France. It was created with the merger of Blaise Pascal University and the University of Auvergne on 1 January 2017.

Clermont Auvergne University comprises 22 components, divided into Training and Research Units (UFR, formerly faculties), Schools and Institutes (IUT).