The blended course will highlight how economic theories have changed over time, and how there has always been a plurality of different views at any point in time. It will provide students with the opportunity to read and discuss key economic texts from the past, as well as to analyse and understand specific topics or concepts from a variety of points of view. Our discipline has always been characterized by a plurality of competing perspectives and research paradigms, despite the recent, worrying involution in both teaching and research. A historical view of the development of economics is key to understanding where economics comes from and where it is going.

The course will comprise three modules (each recommended for 3 ETCS):

• Module 1. Reading seminars (online)
• Module 2. Lectures (online)
• Module 3. Workshop in Rome (in person)

Students can choose to take part in one or both the virtual components, and the physical part.

The group activities foreseen for the physical component will encompass innovative teaching methods (theatrical representations, mock trials) and aim at allowing the students to take stock and put in practice what they have learnt in the online modules. The specific forms of activities chosen highlight and even force students to explicitly consider plurality of ideas and points of views in economics.

During the physical mobility part, the students will attend seminars on specific topics, held by the professors of the organizing universities and/or guest speakers, they will take part in roundtables, and they will engage in a number of group activities that will have been prepared during the remote course. This will include one or more theatrical representations (depending on the number of students), and two or more mock “trials”. Theatrical performances will be held by the students in the form of dialogues. Students will impersonate previously defined characters, based on a text written by themselves, under the supervision of a professor.

Mock trials will have the students divide into four groups: two will argue respectively for and against a certain thesis (e.g. a certain hard question in the history of economic thought) while the other two groups will compose the jury and the professors will act as judge. Then, the groups will switch roles: the two groups of the jury in the first trial become the attorneys, against pro and against a certain thesis, in a second trial on a different topic, and two groups of previous attorneys become the new jury.

The teaching goal of both kinds of activities is to highlight the presence of different points of views by means of the rhetorical device of debates.

The virtual part is divided into two separate modules.

In the “reading seminars” module, selected key writings from the more recent past of the discipline are assigned to students, who then collectively discuss in class their message and significance. The specific reading list will be adapted to the students’ priori knowledge and interests, but will likely include the following: Veblen T. (1898), Pigou A.C. (1917), Schumpeter J. (1928), Keynes J.M. (1930), Pen J. (1971), Minsky H.P. (1973), Robinson J. (1974), Boserup E. (1975), Hirschman A.O. (1982), Agarwal B. (1992), Sen A. (2000), Folbre N. and Nelson J.A. (2000), Sylos Labini P. (2003).

In the “lectures” module, students will attend ten weekly seminars on a specific topic (full list to be finalized), such as the theory of value, the theory of employment, etc. These topics will be analysed and discussed from a historical point of view, considering how different economists approached and explained the relevant facts or concepts over time. The “lectures” module will cover a larger span than the reading seminars, from the ‘pre-history’ of economics (considering ancient Greece) up to the mid-XX century, as well as basic notions and debates on economic methodology and the philosophy of economics.

In both cases, a weekly online session will run from the beginning of October to mid December. If necessary, one or two sessions could take place in January.

Students can enrol in one or both the modules – but please notice that decisions on how many credits will be recognised rests with the single universities and not with the organizers of the BIP.