Certeau, Michel de (1925-86). French cultural historian. Originally a Jesuit theologian, with a training in history, literature, and anthropology, de Certeau spanned several disciplines with enormous erudition. His membership of Lacan's École Freudienne (1964-80) informed his many books on the religious and cultural history of the 16th, 17th, and 18th c. Close in some respects to Foucault, he was particularly concerned to identify the strategies by which dominated groups sought to resist the constraints imposed on the meanings and activities available to them. See his L'Invention du quotidien (1974) and L'Écriture de l'histoire (1975).

[Michael Kelly]

The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French. Copyright © 1995, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.