3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

Cryptocurrencies? NFTs? Meme stocks? What is happening in contemporary capitalism? To answer this question, our seminar will facilitate an in-depth engagement with the theories and histories of finance capitalism. We will focus on how the financial transformations of capitalism over the past century have been theorized and historicized towards answering the following questions: is finance capitalism an aberration, a phase, or the norm of capitalism? What are the underlying forces driving financialization? What is the relationship between finance capitalism, economic crises, rising indebtedness, and racial capitalism? And what can we say about where contemporary capitalism is headed? This seminar will take an interdisciplinary approach, reading prominent thinkers across political economy, history, sociology, geography, and political science. Our readings and discussions will explore the past, structure, and movement of contemporary capitalist society and help to orient us in this bewildering era of financial exuberance, taking stock of the present and its possible trajectories.