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The history of Euro-American Political Thought has been aptly criticized for its prejudices with respect to race, gender, class, the subject, capitalism, colonialism, sociocentrism, and humanist exceptionalism. How deeply are those themes ensconced in early Christian traditions, secular orientations to the earth, later practices of capitalism, and contemporary images of “the political”? Is exposure enough? The seminar starts with readings of Hesiod’s Theogony and the Book of Job. It then explores how Augustine consolidates sharp shifts in these orientations to faith, divinity, nature, gender, discipline, time and the earth. You might call him an agent of the first conquest of Europe. Key chapters from The City of God: Against the Pagans and On Christian Doctrine will be engaged. We will also rummage through Foucault’s newly translated book, Confessions of The Flesh. Then we turn to what might be called the second Christian/imperial conquest, this time launched during the 15th century Spanish invasion of the Americas. How did that conquest re-enact and differ from the first? A key text here will be Todorov’s The Conquest of America. We then sample short essays by Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Arendt, and Heidegger, to see how they consolidate some Augustinian priorities and challenge others. The seminar finally addresses the thought of Dipesh Chakrabarty, as he provincializes Europe. In his new book, The climate of history in a planetary age. Chakrabarty both criticizes currents in Euro-centered thought (“the political”, the earth as background to politics, racism, exceptionalism, etc) and some currents in post-colonial thought.