The Premodern Condition

“Bruce Holsinger is one of the most inventive medievalists of his generation, and The Premodern Condition affirms his brilliance at revealing the intersections of history and theory in medieval studies. More than just a book about medievalism, The Premodern Condition is really a book about the institutions of modern literary criticism and about the ways in which the past haunts even the most seemingly contemporary of academic practitioners.”—Seth Lerer, Stanford University

“The Premodern Condition is an important and original contribution to emerging debates about the history and significance of critical theory. Holsinger demonstrates that twentieth-century theoretical discourses, as they become separated from nineteenth-century humanistic and social scientific disciplines, engage in a series of brilliant defamiliarizing moves fundamentally grounded in medievalism.”—Amy Hollywood, University of Chicago

“In this fascinating book, Bruce Holsinger explores the deep impact, allure, and provocation of medieval genres, modes of scholarship, and habits and practices for the influential French theorists of the ’60s and ’70s. What he meticulously uncovers, and brilliantly analyses, is nothing less than the grand translatio studii of our times. The medieval period was not merely a major archive for Bataille, Lacan, Derrida, Barthes, and Bourdieu; it was instrumental to their assault on the post-medieval legacies of the Western tradition.”—Sarah Beckwith, Duke University