During 1981-1982 the Institute for Advanced Study held a special year on algebraic geometry. Naturally there were a number of seminars, and this volume is essentially the proceedings of one of these.

The motif of the seminar was to explore the ways in which the recent developments in formal Hodge theory might be applied to problems in algebraic geometry. Accordingly, there were first a number of background lectures (Chapters I, II, IV; cf. also Chapter VII) dealing with classical Hodge theory, variations of Hodge structure, and mixed Hodge structures. There was also one talk (Chapter V) discussing some important recent...