HOW DO WE MAKE ANGELS? ARCHEOLOGY OF BODY IN TEXTBOOKS OF MORAL AND HYGIENE IN FRANCE (1880-1974)

Abstract

From an archive composed by 342 French textbooks of moral and hygiene, this paper analyzes how a biopower or a micropower is formed in school discourse. Body is here built, flesh is worked as it has been by other Books (biblos in Greek). We can see clearly how the jewish-christian, catholic or, more widely, monotheistic precepts are very present in these textbooks of moral and hygiene published in France between the end of the 19th Century and the 1970’s. However, it’s important to highlight that these textbooks are part of the Republican school which in France, according to the 1905’s laws, is described as separated from the Church and since Jules Ferry (1880-1882) as a laic institution.