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By the end of the course, you'll be able to...
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Explain the ways in which critical, cultural and literary history and theory contributes to our understanding of three central economic concepts – money, credit, markets.
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Evaluate the differences between a number of central critical traditions and theoretical approaches (eg the history of money as credit versus the history of money as a commodity).
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Describe the origins and the purpose of the contemporary financial market and the ways in which it functions.
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Identify and discuss the ways in which a range of literary and visual texts offer us a critical insight into these histories and give them a social and political relevance.
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Critically reflect on the ways in which the visual appearance of money signals it as a source of authority and locates it within a specific place and time.
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Evaluate the implications of an historical approach to money that reads it as process of dematerialisation (from barter to gold to paper).
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Develop an understanding of the formation of money in contemporary society and why this is a history of credit and how it has been made sense of through a recurring visual and linguistic imagery (eg the bubble and the balloon).
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Understand the history and function of the stock exchange and the way in which it has moved from a physical location to a set of highly complex mathematical operations.
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Reflect upon your own relationship and access to the idea of the financial market and your knowledge of it.
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Examine how the financial crisis was given a narrative in the mainstream press and what this suggested for the need to change the conditions in which it had occurred.
