Abstraction, fiction, character--these terms associated with literary and cultural expression are also useful, even necessary, for thinking about capitalism. This class will consider two areas of overlap between US literature and the logic of capital accumulation. We will look at outright depictions of what it is like to work, own, consume, and owe money against the backdrop of economic restructuring. Some writers on our syllabus attempt to capture the individual contours of experience through narratives about seasonal farming, office life, or restaurant service work. These works may dramatize collective experiences of class, or point to the emotions and judgments provoked by economic circumstances. But there are also authors who use formal inventions to illustrate capitalism as an economic system and social order. We will consult with writers and scholars who propose that the financial crisis has its own aesthetic, that unmarked racial character tells us something about the dynamics of global capitalism, and that strategies of lyric poetry reveal the “hidden abode” of domestic labor. Readings may include Hernan Diaz’s Trust, Helena María Viramontes’ Under the Feet of Jesus, Ed Park’s Personal Days, Merritt Tierce’s Love Me Back, Ling Ma’s Severance, Karen Tei Yamashita’s Through the Arc of the Rainforest, Julio Puente García’s short fiction in translation; poetry by Bernadette Mayer, Janice Lobo Sapigao, and Stephanie Young; and the films Snowpiercer and Sorry to Bother You.