This course will investigate a contradiction in our “fashion of speaking” about time and how it interacts with our notions of subjectivity, especially affect theory. It will ask the question how do time, subjectivity, and affect interact in our understanding of contemporary capitalism? Starting with the famous debate between Henri Bergson and Albert Einstein in Paris in 1922, it led to “two cultures” of natural sciences and the humanities that exist to this very day. Our framing of the problem will stem from Sianne Ngai's essay on the gimmick and the first three chapters of Lauren Berlant's Cruel Optimism. We will examine the interaction between time and subjectivity link through Marxism, neoliberal capitalism, semiotic/linguistics, and the philosophy of language.