During the first half of this course we look closely at Baruch Spinoza's major works, the Ethics and the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, studying Spinoza's texts themselves and resituating them in conversation with contemporary interlocutors. During the second half of the course we trace the reception of Spinoza since the late 1960s, considering how and why various theorists have retrieved Spinoza/ism in an attempt to rethink power, labor, ideology, affect, and the body.