Purpose of the lecture series
DEPE lectures introduce novel ways of thinking about the history of political and economic thought. They situate political and economic thought in broader cultural, political and intellectual settings, hence going beyond standard canonical histories that have dominated these fields for too long. In addition, the DEPE lectures explore the possibilities of combining the study of history of political thought and the history of economic thought.
About the lecture
Karl Marx’s critique of what he called “classical political economy” used the concept of ideology to identify the limits of the science’s categories and reprogram the ethos and intellectual equipment of the political economist. This move was far less innovative than typically thought, for the political economist held no institutionalised office in nineteenth-century Britain and was not professionally trained. As a result, the meaning of political economy and the definition of the political economist were unstable, both being subject to crosscutting debates in theology, philosophy, and party politics. This situation produced endless contest over the political economist of the type that Marx would later exemplify. This lecture explores the nature of this instability in political economy c. 1800-1830 and formulates the hypothesis that the office of the economist has not been stabilised since.
About the lecturer
Ryan Walter is Associate Professor at the University of Queensland where he teaches Western Civilisation. His research focuses on political economy in Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with the key statement Before Method and Models (Oxford, 2021). A series of subsidiary findings are published in Modern Intellectual History, Journal of the History of Ideas, Historical Journal, and Intellectual History Review. A parallel research focus is “colonial political economy”, aimed at recovering economic thinking produced by colonial intellectuals in the Global South.
Funded by the European Union (ERC, DEPE, 101088549). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
