Louis Althusser

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Lore & Background

Althusser was born in French Algeria in the town of Birmendreïs, near Algiers, to a pied-noir petit-bourgeois family from Alsace, France. His father, Charles-Joseph Althusser, was a lieutenant in the French army and a bank clerk, while his mother, Lucienne Marthe Berger, a devout Catholic, worked as a schoolteacher. In 1930, his family moved to Marseille. Althusser was admitted into the ENS in July 1939, but his attendance was deferred because he was drafted into the French Army in September 1939. Seized in Vannes in June 1940, he was held in a prisoner-of-war camp in Schleswig-Holstein, in Northern Germany, for the five remaining years of the war. In the camp, he was at first drafted to hard labour but ultimately reassigned to work in the infirmary after falling ill. Althusser recalled: 'It was in prison camp that I first heard Marxism discussed by a Parisian lawyer in transit—and that I actually met a communist'. After the war, he resumed his studies at the ENS in 1945. In 1946, Althusser met sociologist Hélène Rytmann, a Jewish former French Resistance member with whom he was in a relationship until he killed her by strangulation in 1980. In 1948, he became a tutor at the ENS. He joined the French Communist Party in October 1948. In 1954, he became secrétaire de l'école litteraire. Althusser spent 35 years in the ENS, working there until November 1980.

Reader's Guide

Althusser's significance lies in his attempt to defend the theoretical foundations of Marxism against empiricism, humanist and reformist orientations, and the cult of personality. His work influenced a generation of French philosophers—among his students were Derrida, Pierre Bourdieu, Michel Foucault, and Michel Serres—through the lectures and conferences he organized at the ENS with participation of leading French philosophers like Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Lacan. However, his life was marked by periods of intense mental illness. In 1980, he killed his wife, the sociologist Hélène Rytmann, by strangling her. He was declared unfit to stand trial due to insanity and committed to a psychiatric hospital for three years. He did little further academic work, dying in 1990. Contemporary historical research has widely criticized those statements.

Did You Know?

• Althusser was born in French Algeria in the town of Birmendreïs, near Algiers.
• He spent five years in a German prisoner-of-war camp in Schleswig-Holstein during World War II.
• Althusser first heard Marxism discussed in the prison camp by a Parisian lawyer in transit.
• In 1980, he killed his wife, sociologist Hélène Rytmann, by strangling her.
• He was declared unfit to stand trial due to insanity and committed to a psychiatric hospital for three years.