Notions of value are central to a wide variety of human activities, informing spirituality, morality, economics, social relations, public policy, and our relationship with the natural and built environments. Scholars in the humanities and social sciences, though, rarely do anything more than invoke an implicit understanding of the concept. Is value innate in people, places, and things? Or is it actively defined and redefined, whether by individuals or society as a whole? This course focuses on value in a series of contexts, including the value of money, commodities, and human life as well as the values promulgated by religion and morality. In doing so, it draws on the insights of political economy, anthropology, sociology, literary theory, cultural studies, and history to both demonstrate the value of deliberate reflection with respect to the use of concepts and to deepen our understanding of this incredibly important concept in particular.