This course is essentially an exploration of the philosophical and theological meaning of work. In order to illuminate the meaning of work, we ponder the philosophical roots of dominion (God’s command to “subdue the earth”) and of technē (the root of technique, technology). The first part of the course attempts to unfold the classical understanding of work, beginning with the Jewish and Greek conceptions and then following their integration and transformation in Christian culture through a metaphysics of creation. The second half of the course considers the radical changes that the nature and the practice of work undergo in modernity and above all in the twentieth century, and seeks to form a judgment about the current state of the matter from a Catholic perspective.