Three decades of advances in financial economics have transformed global markets. As a matter of theory, the valuing of options (financial products) became increasingly central to understanding the market in any commodity; as a matter of politics questions about the direction and sustainability of the market system were supplanted by questions about its volatility—how to manage the uncertainty that it creates. The Crisis of 2008 illustrates the need to better understand what is new, and what is not, about conceiving of capitalism as a whole in this way. This conference brings theories of economic value and regulation into conversation with the study of culture, institutions, ethics, history,  geography and theology. Its aim is to consider in what ways capitalism is producing a future that is unlike its past. Panel topics include:

1) Eschatology, Visualization and Scenario Planning
2) Market Institutions, Government and Crisis
3) Affective, Spatial and Material Flows of Value
4) Social Risk, Human Capital and Financializing Inequality
5) Critique, Confession and Conversion in the Aftermath of 2008. 

Please visit http://rethinkingcapitalism.ucsc.edu for more information.