Contemporary Critical Theories: To Excess

Investigation of the concepts of excess and surplus across several domains: political economy, psychoanalysis, theories of reproduction, environment, literary and artistic representation. In relation to value, affect, energy, material wealth, waste, population, what is an excess? Is more synonymous with "too much"? What are the conditions and uses of surplus? What are its metrics? What are the languages of surplus? In theoretical and literary readings, we consider the parameters and complexities of surplus and excess: the concepts' internal divisions and their capacity to cross discursive thresholds. There may, of course, be too much reading.