"The Courtyard of the Beurs in Amsterdam," 1653, by Dutch painter Emanuel de Witte. This course offers students an introduction to finance through historical and social-scientific perspectives. (This image is in the public domain.)
Instructor(s)
Prof. William Deringer
MIT Course Number
STS.002
As Taught In
Spring 2016
Level
Undergraduate
Course Description
Course Description
This course provides students with a broad historical and social-scientific introduction to a central aspect of modern economic life: Finance. By drawing upon a variety of disciplinary perspectives from the humanities and social sciences, the course offers a multi-dimentional picture of finance, not only as an economic phenomenon, but as a political, cultural, intellectual, material, and technological one. The course offers an introduction to foundational financial concepts and technologies, and will help students understand finance as a complex and multifaceted phenomenon. This course also provides students with the opportunity to improve skills in written communication, and to learn tools for historical analysis and textual interpretation.