This course examines works and debates in both classic and contemporary political economy. Students engage with empirically grounded, theoretically sensitive analyses to consider key questions: How have humans thought about the relationship between politics and economy? What normative commitments and ontologies underlie the different frames political communities use to order thought about the organization of human society and activity? What alternatives to contemporary approaches exist, and how in the past have politics and imagination shaped views of economic value and processes of change? Our seminar will address such themes as capitalism and its relationship to racialization; understandings of the commons, enclosure movements, and contemporary processes of commoditization and privatization; precarity and democracy; globalization and its limits; design and production among many others. Instructors will consider student research interests in finalizing themes. The seminar is open to PhD students from any department at NSSR. Some seminar participants may wish to use the course in preparation for the qualifying exam in political economy, but it is not designed exclusively for this purpose. MA students with a strong interest in political economy may enroll with permission of both course instructors.