This course grapples with an ongoing critical conversation whose starting points are Marx and Nietzsche. Four questions will orient our reading of every work. First, and fundamentally, what is the question or question-set that the theorist proposes to answer and how does s/he set about doing that? This question and approach to it determine what is thinkable and so drive the argument. (A recurring question for these theorists is how has history been manifested: in the human sciences, literature, theory, and other practices; in “facts on the ground” which these discourses work to promote, modify or contest; and in the formation of human subjects and social relations. A related question is, what kind of critique is best suited to transforming the historical conditions in which we live.) Second, what is the writer’s argument, how persuasive is it and why? (In evaluating the argument consider not only the assembled evidence but also significant omissions.) Third, what are the argument’s stakes? For instance, what other critical practices or insights does it enable or inhibit? How might you put this argument and/or methodology to use in your own work, why and with what modifications? Four, what other discourses (theories, institutions, social practices, etc.) does this critique engage and on what terms? (While this final question provides a point of entry into all of the texts we will examine, I propose to pay particular attention to the ways in which contemporary theorists supplement, revise, and/or contest their predecessors—and for what reasons.) These theorists will include: Anderson, Balibar, Brown, Butler, Fergusson, Foucault, Harvey, and Hartman. The topics we’ll address include. These are not easy reads, and we will work through them slowly with a good bit of attention to what they might contribute to understanding and intervening in the world in which we live.