Further to Roy's message, my university has adopted a policy of identifying   
courses as "writing intensive" courses and we decided to use my history of   
thought 4th year seminar. So, I ordered an examination copy of Routledge's _The   
Student guide to writing in economics_ by Robert Neugenboren (of Harvard).   
Appendix A lists twelve fields of economics and, of course, history of thought   
is not one of the fields -- but game theory, economics history and comparative   
economics are!  
  
So, despite the mainstream's claim that methodology does not matter, it turns   
out that it really matters since that seems to be the sole basis for excluding   
history of thought. I reach this conclusion because the book is focused by "the   
language of economic analysis" which in Chapter 2 is said to involve exactly   
"economic models", "hypothesis testing", "improving the fit" and "applying to   
tools". Of course, it would be difficult for mainstream economists to see how   
HET would use such methodology hence it cannot be part of economics proper.  
  
Lawrence Boland