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Again, my question to Roy was not about heterodox economics, but about the history of
economic thought, an area in which a core of faculty at Duke are qualified to supervise
dissertations, yet do not, apparently as a matter of departmental policy. I find it
curious that the HET is considered important enough to the department to include it in its
curriculum, to devote a number of faculty lines to the field, to sponsor a--perhaps the--
leading journal in the field, conferences, etc., yet it is not considered appropriate for
a dissertation. I am very willing to be educated as to the reasoning behind the
department's position, but it cannot be because there are no faculty at Duke to make up a
committee. This is a policy that would be somewhat understandable for a department with no
historians of thought, no history of thought in its program. But given Duke's department,
it must be due to some deeper feeling that the history of economic thought is not a valid
sub-discipline of economics, or perhaps that it can be a scholar's second field, but not
their primary one. That seems strange for a department with several faculty
for whom HET is their primary field.  
 
Mat Forstater 
 
 
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