This course introduces students to some prominent ways of theorizing the contemporary global financial architecture. It foregrounds global financial crisis in order to chart the historical role of finance, or investment capital, in shaping the economic forces of globalization. Exploring the theoretical and practical role that financial investment plays in capitalism and economic growth, the course investigates whether this role has changed with the greater economic integration and capital mobility associated with "neoliberal globalization." This course has a strong theoretical and political economy orientation, while remaining in conversation with approaches represented in cultural studies, human geography, gender and postcolonial studies. Students can thus understand "capital investment" not merely as a financial bet on the future, but as an emotional and psychological one as well.