Calendar of Events

Fall Semester 2009


September 2: Introductory Meeting
Robinson Hall, Basement seminar room

September 21: Reading Session:  Foundations
Robinson Hall, Basement seminar room

Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation (1944 / 2001). Introduction and pp. 35-80.

E.P. Thompson, “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century,” Past and Present, 50: 76-136 (1971).

Fernand Braudel, Afterthoughts on Material Civilization and Capitalism

Douglass North and Barry Weingast, “Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth Century England,” Journal of Economic History, 49: 803-832.

October 5: Reading Session:  Labor
Robinson Hall, lower library

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, in Robert Heilbroner, ed., The Essential Adam Smith, Book I: Introduction, 159-161; Chapter 1, 161-171; Chapter 8, 194-208; Chapter 10, 210-219.

Karl Marx, “Wage Labor and Capital,” in Robert C. Tucker, ed, The Marx-Engels Reader (2nd ed.), pp. 203-217.

E.P. Thomson, The Making of the English Working Class, pp. 9-14.
                                                         
Ira Katznelson, "Working Class Formation, Constructing Cases and Comparisons," in Katznelson and Zolberg eds., Working-Class Formation, pp. 3-44.

Thomas G. Andrews, Killing for Coal: America's Deadliest Labor War [pages tba]

Robert Steinfeld, “The Problem of Waged Labor” (Oct. 2007)

Paper outline due on October 12.


October 26: Speaker:  Marcel van der Linden, Institute for Social History, Amsterdam
Robinson Hall, lower library

"Conceptualizing the World Working Class (click to download paper)."

Commentators:
John Womack, Department of History, Harvard University
Stefan Link, Department of History, Harvard University

November 9: Tami Friedman, Brock University, Ontario
Robinson Hall, lower library

"The Promise of Prosperity: Capital Flight, Regional Economic Development and Anti-Unionism in the Postwar South" (click to download paper)

Supplemental reading:
Bruce Schulman, From Cotton Belt to Sunbelt: Federal Policy, Economic Development and The Transformation of The South 1938-1980, Ch 3, pp. 63-88

James Cobb, The Selling Of The South: The Southern Crusade For Industrial Development 1936-90, Ch. 4, pp. 96-122.

Commentators:
Ben Sachs, Harvard Law School
Devon Coleman, Harvard Law School

November 16: Reading Session:  Commodities
Robinson Hall, basement seminar room

Rosa Luxemburg, The Accumulation of Capital, ch. 26-29.

David Harvey, Spaces of Capital,
“The Geography of Capitalist accumulation: A reconstruction of the Marxian Theory” 237-266.

Gary Gereffi, Miguel Korzeniewicz, Commodity Chains and Global Capitalism pp. 1-20. And 48-51

Jennifer Bair ed. Frontiers of Commodity Chain Research pp. 1-35

Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History, pp tba.

November 23:       Jan Abbeloos, University of Ghent
Robinson Hall, lower library

"Born WIth A Copper Spoon: Global Copper and Local Development, 1870-2000"
(click to download paper)

Commentator
Robert Bates, Department of Government,  Harvard University

Supplemental readings:

Lauren Benton, “From the World-Systems Perspective to Institutional World History,” Journal of World History 7.2 (1996) 261-295.
(Harvard link)

Jeniffer Bair, “Global Capitalism and Commodity Chains: Looking Back,Going Forward,” Competition and Change 9.2 (2005) 153-180. (Harvard link)


Spring Semester 2010:

January 25: Sven Beckert, Harvard University

February 22: Philip Mirowski, University of Notre Dame

[Paper TBA]
[Readings TBA]

March 1: Reading Session:  Money

Carl Menger, trans. J. Dingwall, and B. F. Hoselitz, Principles of Economics, The Institute for Humane Studies Series in Economic Theory, Libertarian Press  (New York: New York University Press, 1976/1994), 257-280

R. A. Radford, “The Economic Organization of a P.O.W. Camp,” Economica Nov. 1945: 189-201.

Karl Marx, trans. B. Fowkes, Capital: Volume 1: A Critique of Political Economy, Penguin Classics, 1990, 163-227.

Viviana Zelizer, “The Social Meaning of Money:  ‘Special Monies,” American Journal of Sociology 95: 342-377 (Sept. 1989)

Bruce G. Carruthers and Sarah Babb, “The Color of Money and the Nature of Value:  Greenbacks and Gold in Postbellum America,” American Journal of Sociology 101: 1556-1591 (May 1996).


March 29: Roy Kreitner, Tel Aviv University

[Paper TBA]
[Readings TBA]

First draft of paper due


April 12: [Speaker TBA]



April 26: Presentation of student research papers