For several years I have been teaching a course to economics PhD students in the
University of Oporto. Most of these students are planning to write
dissertations on fields other than HET, so they need to be persuaded
that the subject is relevant to them. Though this course is too long to
fit into a week, or even two, something shorter but along similar lines,
might work in a summer school. The intended audience
(those doing PhDs in other subjects) sounds similar. It is
certainly not the only model (I would approach the problem of engaging
students with Smith or Mill rather differently) but it works for quite a few
students.

The largest part of the course is a series of lectures (with as much
discussion as I can
stimulate) on the history of economics since Marshall. These take the
story up to the present day and, importantly, I think, include
discussion of the history of some of the applied fields in which most
of them plan to make their careers. The type of coverage is mixed, depending
on the availability of material: where material is available, the
coverage is more contextual or "thicker" than for other topics where
less has been written, and the mix of context and theory changes as new things
appear. There is enough on the theories that they can relate this to
what they study in macro, micro etc, and at the same time they are
also exposed to the idea that historical questions go beyond the
theory itself.

Students also have to write an essay, normally on a topic related to their
proposed dissertation field. An important part of this is working out
a topic that is addresses some interesting historical question. I
think that having to do this is important in helping them realise that
simply surveying "x's contribution" is not in itself interesting
(though it may enable me to lead them on towards a more interesting
question). A good number of students manage to do interesting essays
(bearing in mind that they normally do not have access to archives)
but I think the main benefit for them is learning how to formulate an
interesting historical question which, I hope, gives them more respect
for history. Some of them certainly have to think hard to come up with
a topic that is sufficiently historical to satisfy me!

There is some discussion of alternative ways to approach history
(centred on Roy's paper in the Oxford Review of Economic Policy and
some of my own papers), but mostly this arises out of specific topics.

The idea for approaching it this way came from Antonio Almodovar and
Fatima Brandao who, when they recruited me, made it clear the type of
course they wanted.

Roger Backhouse