Historical Methods and Political Economy: Track 3

Semester and Year Offered: Monsoon Semester, First year

Course Coordinator and Team: Arindam Banerjee

Email of course coordinator: arindam[at]aud[dot]ac[dot]in

Pre-requisites:

Aim:

The objective of this track is to understand and critically engage with the evolution of the framework of analysis from Classical Political Economy to Marxian Political Economy. The critical departures from CPE to MPE and the debates regarding them are engaged with in the course. This track will train students conceptually to understand and apply various methods/frameworks of political economy to contemporary problems.

Course Outcomes:

Brief description of modules/ Main modules:

1. Frameworks of analysis in Classical Political Economy
2. Evolution of Marxist Political Economy
3. Fundamental Changes in Approaches and Categories
4. Dialectical history, Method of Inquiry and Method of Presentation
5. Challenges of Marxist Historiography

Assessment Details with weights:

Review Essay (100%), where the student has to critically engage with any methodological debate in the domain of political economy

Reading List:

• Fine, Ben and Milonakis, Dimitris (2009) From Economics Imperialism to Freakonomics: The Shifting Boundaries Between Economics and Other Social Sciences. London; New York: Routledge.
• Habib, Irfan. 1988. ‘Problems of Marxist Historiography’. Social Scientist. 16(12), 3-13
• Lukacs, Georg. 1967. History and Class Consciousness. Merlin Press
• Ronald Meek. 1956. Studies in the Labor Theory of Value
• Additional readings will be provided during the course.