Colleagues -- As a reminder, abstracts for the 2007 HOPE Conference on "Keeping Faith:
Religious Belief and Political Economy" are due this Friday. We hope you will consider
taking part. Details on the conference and submissions are below. If you believe that
you have a contribution but for any reason are unable to make Friday's deadline, feel free
to let me or Brad Bateman know.
Thanks to all of you who have already sent us your ideas. We think this is shaping up to
be a great conference.
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Call for Papers: 2007 Duke HOPE Conference
Keeping Faith: Religious Belief and Political Economy
Although the early efforts of western social and political theorists were
sometimes made in opposition to religious interpretations of the world, religious belief
held sway throughout the early modern period as the dominant means to interpret human
experience. Sometime in the 19th century, however, economics and the other social
sciences began to develop analytical models that were completely severed from theology and
religious belief. Thus, in the early 19th century Malthus’s work was animated by his
complex religious beliefs, but by the last quarter of that century Sidgwick and Marshall
each were working to develop an analytical apparatus that, while still focused heavily on
social ethics, was completely secular.
Still, the period from the middle of the 19th to the middle of the 20th century
clearly did not involve a sudden transition or even a steady progression to a secular
economics. Throughout Western Europe and North America, the work of many economists in
this period was animated by their religious beliefs. For example, on both continents, the
“Labor Question” that arose in the last decades of the 19th century because of the
second Industrial Revolution posed problems that forced many theorists back to their
religious beliefs. Some of this work may have been in response to activism in the Church,
exemplified by the papal encyclicals Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo anno, for example,
which attempted to humanize a seemingly increasingly inhuman capitalism. At the same time
in the United States, the first generation of economists who returned from their German
graduate studies included a core of people dedicated to Christian socialism and the Social
Gospel.
The purpose of this conference will be to focus on efforts by European and North
American economists from roughly 1800-1950 to include their religious beliefs in their
economic analysis. We are interested in describing, articulating, contextualizing, and
interpreting the work of those economists whose work was animated by their religious
faith. We are primarily interested in the work of those who could be considered
professional economists, rather than the social writings of theologians and religious
leaders, except insofar as these latter have a direct bearing on the former.
We are interested in papers that address this phenomenon from many perspectives.
Papers included in the conference might address some of the following questions:
-Who were economists whose work was animated by a desire to keep religious
perspectives in political economy? How did their work differ--in methodology, motivation,
narrative, and area of inquiry--from the work of other contemporary economists and social
theorists at this time?
-What differences existed between these patterns in Europe and North America?
-Were there significant differences in the efforts of people from different
religious traditions to keep religious perspectives in political economy?
-Did religious economists work together in formal or informal networks to
integrate their faith and study, and if so what was their form and how did they shape the
history of economics?
-To what extent were the political economists who tried to keep religious
perspectives in their work successful/ unsuccessful at influencing public policy?
-How did the nature of the efforts to keep religious perspectives in political
economy change through the period 1800-1950? Were these changes in response to clearly
discernible events?
-How did secularization finally overtake mainstream economic analysis? Did this
take place differently in different contexts? Was European secularization significantly
different than North American secularization?
Conference Logistics
The conference will take place in late April 2007, at Duke University in Durham,
NC. It is tentatively scheduled for Thursday April 19th to Saturday April 21st. The
conference will be part of Duke's History of Political Economy (HOPE) series, an annual
workshop of approximately 15-20 participants. The conference is organized as a single
plenary session and is designed to foster discussion and exchange among participants.
Submitting a paper to the conference is considered offering a submission to the journal
History of Political Economy; papers are refereed for inclusion in the annual supplemental
issue, produced as a book.
Duke University Press will pay for lodging and some meals. Additional funds may
become available to defray other costs.
Submissions
Proposals for papers (not to exceed five hundred words) and complete contact
information should be sent to both conference organizers, Brad Bateman and Spencer
Banzhaf, by October 14, 2005 (see contact information below). Proposals will be selected
and authors will be notified by Dec 1, 2005. The completed papers are due March 2, 2007.
Contact Information
To submit applications or for further information, please contact
Bradley Bateman
Dept. of Economics
Grinnell College
Grinnell, IA 50112-1690
Telephone: 641-269-3145
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and/or
Spencer Banzhaf
Resources for the Future
1616 P Street NW, Washington, DC 20036
Telephone: 202-328-5033
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Spencer Banzhaf
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