What is money?
What does it mean and why do we value it?
Can societies exist without money? 
Is all money the same?  

In this course, we will ask these and related questions, and think about how to answer them historically.  Money, it should be noted, has many different kinds of history.  For instance, consider the history of the specific objects we use as money: a single coin or bill might pass through thousands of hands and travel considerably distances, but it might also be treated as a collector’s item and removed from circulation.  Then think about the technological history of money’s manufacture and the political history of states’ control of those techniques.  Such questions emphasize money’s physical qualities, but there are less material aspects to its history, as well: from the development of monetary theory to ideas of psychological “investment” and cultural currency.

We will read and discuss “theoretical” texts on money (Simmel, Marx, Locke, psychoanalytic perspectives) as well as key works of economic anthropology, before looking in some detail at case studies drawn from the past five centuries. 

SEMINAR TOPICS and READING LIST
USEFUL LINKS
ASSIGNMENTS