I'd like to pick people's brains for a syllabus about communication and money. Here are some discussion topics I have so far:


capital as communication: Marx on alienation of labor and capital, money as commodity fetish, colonial history of fetish objects (e.g. European merchants giving cheap beads for spices, furs, etc.)

metaphors for the market(i.e. invisible hand, bull and bear, trickle down, others?)

new money and the rise of mass media: the rise of the bougeoise, the rise the penny newspaper, the rise of the novel, and the creation of the public sphere, conflation of the buying public with the public sphere


credit as communication (stuff on Knights of Templar, rise of the 'credit rating', Mohammed Yunus on credit as a human right, material on debt forgiveness and the g8)

Anyone else have any brainstormy ideas? Any book suggestions?

If you wanted to do a self-study class on hip-hop, it would be hard to do better than following this guy's syllabus. I'm not up to speed on most of it, but I plan to get there!

I would like to get more women's perspectives, though. Tricia Rose is great, but I need more.