Literature and Money

Money in its multiple forms has received renewed attention in recent decades, especially since the financial crises in 2008 and the emergence of new cryptocurrencies. Money has been described as a means of exchange, a store of value, a measure of debt, a commodity, a social institution, or a tool in the formation of identity. In all of these instances, money fuses economic purposes with social and cultural practices. Exploring the intersections between economics and aesthetics, this course will juxtapose some of the most influential theories of money from Adam Smith to the present with contemporaneous literary texts that reflect on various aspects of money in their poetics on a thematic or formal level. Literary texts include Shakespeare, Goethe, Balzac, Zola, Thomas Mann, and Martin Amis.