This course will introduce students to a variety of theoretical and literary works that are frequently used by literary and cultural studies scholars to interpret historical and contemporary cultural production. In particular we will focus on those theories that have attempted to comprehend transformations in the meaning “life” in the modern period--a period dubbed by one theorist as “the age of human sacrifice”--and to understand the forms of power (physical, discursive, moral, juridical, economic, racialized, gendered, and statist) that have been developed to exert control over life, and therefore also over death. Topics that we will treat include social death, slavery and colonialism, “biopower,” “necropolitics,” and “disposability.” Emphasis in this course will be placed on learning how to read dense theoretical, philosophical texts; on understanding the dialogue among theorists and how they build upon and depart from each other in creating their theories; on writing about theoretical texts in a concise manner; and, not least, on using the theories that we will read to better understand the various forms of cultural production that surround us. To this end, theoretical texts will be juxtaposed with literary and filmic texts that we will use to “test out” the theory and to understand its pitfalls and possibilities.