A century after his birth and fifty years after the composition of his powerfully influential Mimesis, Erich Auerbach is still a touchstone for contemporary academic debates on the place of historical criticism in the construction of literary theory, on the relations between intellectual activity and political action, and on the function of the critic in recording - or effecting - social change. These fourteen essays draw on new biographical information and recent developments in literary theory and cultural studies to reinterpret Auerbach’s work. The essays challenge some of the most vital issues in contemporary humanistic study: for example, the place of philology in the curriculum, the institutional history of literature departments, the status of the Western canon, and the concept of periodisation in literary history.