Commerce & Culture Intensive

Catalog description

This course will explore representations of business in novels, short stories, plays, and films. By considering markets and marketing, economies and institutions, work and wealth through these cultural texts, the course will ask you to consider the impact of business within society from the experiences of individuals rather than from the perspectives of companies or economics. Through this process you will also develop your writing and critical thinking skills. The course material builds through three thematic sessions that we will use to frame our analyses of the texts, starting from the broad level of social institutions and how they may shape individual identity, then considering the power of culture to construct meaning, and finally narrowing to individual efforts to shape and change organizations and institutions. Each session will culminate in a short essay assignment, with a final essay due at the conclusion of the course.