IO, PIERRE RIVIERE | 1976 | MICHEL FOUCAULT

I, Pierre Rivière, having slaughtered my mother, my sister, and my brother… (Italian edition, 1976) is a collective documentary volume edited by Michel Foucault and his research group. It reconstructs the case of Pierre Rivière, a young French peasant who in 1835 committed parricide and left a detailed written confession. The book presents judicial documents, medical reports, and Rivière’s own memoir, offering a critical reflection on the intersections of law, psychiatry, and social history. Rather than imposing a single interpretation, Foucault juxtaposes voices of jurists, doctors, and peasants, exposing how institutions define madness, crime, and responsibility. The work exemplifies Foucault’s method of archaeology of knowledge, situating a criminal case as a lens to study power and discourse in 19th-century society.