This seminar will explore the role of the Middle Ages (its literature, art, philosophy, theology) in the intellectual culture of the years during and just after WWII. Readings will pair midcentury thinkers with their medieval interlocutors. For example, Simone Weil will be read alongside texts in the tradition of medieval mysticism; Hannah Arendt, alongside Augustine. Other intellectual figures may include: Erich Auerbach, Ernst Robert Curtius, Norbert Elias, Franz Fanon, Ernst Kantorowicz, Paul Zumthor, Erwin Panofsky, Leo Spitzer, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Johan Huizinga. (Med/Ren, 20th/21st)