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After the announcement of the Value of Culture course was circulated on  
the STS (Science and Technology Studies) list, the following exchange took  
place.  
 
> On Fri, 30 Jan 1998, James Hess wrote:  
> > As someone who works in economic anthropology, I am torn between 
> > being scandalized by this example of disciplinary imperialism and 
hopeful 
> > that it signals that the discipline may be opening (the window only, 
not 
> > the door) to hearing theories from other disciplines.   
> >  
> Steve Fuller replied: 
 > While it's true that the seminar leaders are all economists,  
> they've all 
> been very active in broadening the horizons of the discipline to include 
> things not normally covered by it. In fact, many of them would be 
regarded 
> more as critics than defenders of the neoclassical orthodoxy. So, I think 
> your concerns are somewhat misplaced. However, I'll forward your message 
> to them to see what they say. 
>  
> In any case, the field of 'economic anthropology' has origins in 
economics 
> as well as anthropology. For example, Karl Polanyi, who was concerned 
with 
> the culturally specific character of market economies, is normally 
> regarded as one of the founders of this field.  
>  
 
Here is my response to Steve Fuller's request: 
 
One of my tasks as Associate Editor of History of Political Economy is to 
develop symposia on "outreach" topics, to open the perspectives of 
historians of economics to other conversations, related to our concerns, 
in other disciplines or subdisciplines (E.g. science studies, sociology 
of science, philosophy of science, history of science, feminist theory, 
Marxian thought, etc.).  I have tried, as has Phil Mirowski at my 
request, without success now for three years to engage economic 
anthropologists in developing a symposium for us on the history of 
economic anthropology and its connection with the history of economics.   
 
Consequently I am not convinced that the disregard of economic  
anthropology by economists, and historians of economics, is entirely  
a case of an imperialistic perspective -- the disdain expressed by   
economic anthropologists for engaging economists plays a role too.  
And I'm still looking for a way to have that symposium ...  
 
 
E. Roy Weintraub, Professor of Economics 
Director, Center for Social and Historical Studies of Science 
E-mail: [log in to unmask] 
URL: http://www.econ.duke.edu/~erw/erw.homepage.html 
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