Course Announcement: In the Spring Semester 2001 I will be teaching a graduate course on the internet about Marx's method. Since I consider Roy Bhaskar's Dialectical Critical Realism to be the best modern introduction to the method Marx was using, this course will have Bhaskar's book "Dialectic, the Pulse of Freedom" as its main reading. One might say that this is a course about Bhaskar's Dialectical Critical Realism with lots of examples taken from Marx. The format of the course will be a mailing list which discusses specific study questions. This mailing list will be open between January 8 and April 26, 2001, with a Spring break March 12-18. This period of almost 15 weeks will be split into 29 half-weekly segments, with specific readings and study questions assigned for each Segment. The readings will at the beginning be selected passages from Bhaskar's "Realist Theory of Science" and "Possibility of Naturalism", with special emphasis of how this theory is incomplete because it is not sufficiently "dialectical," and then we will cover the whole of "Dialectics, the Pulse of Freedom," with special emphasis to the commonalities with and differences from Marx's method, and with specific examples from Marx's "Capital" and other works. Each participant is expected to make at least one contribution to this mailing list each week, which either consists in answering one of the pre-formulated study questions assigned for each segment, or responding to an email sent by someone else, or formulating and answering other questions of interest connected with the readings assigned for this segment. This will be a fairly labor intensive course with in-depth discussion of difficult readings. Student not enrolled at the University of Utah who want to get credit for this course should find a faculty member at their own University as a sponsor to monitor their participation in the course so that they can receive credit for directed reading for it. I am willing to spend time on all students alike, I have grant money which pays me for this, and I will try to give a fair evaluation and fair grades to everyone. But for the students of a different University these grades would only be advisory, and it is up to the student's sponsor to decide how much credit the student's work deserves. This course is an experiment. If this and other similar specialized internet seminars are successful, then it will perhaps be possible to develop a better institutional framework in the future. Right now the emphasis is not on the institutional framework itself but on the format: is it feasible and fruitful to have specialized graduate seminars which are attended by students from several Universities? Non-students and faculty are invited to participate as observers; they will get all emails and will be able to respond if they wish. I discussed this course project with Roy Bhaskar and I have his permission to call him on the phone if I have specific questions. But the final responsibility for the course lies with me. If you are interested in taking part in this experiment, please contact me at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hans G. Ehrbar Associate Professor Economics Department University of Utah. -- Hans G. Ehrbar http://www.econ.utah.edu/ehrbar [EMAIL PROTECTED] Economics Department, University of Utah (801) 581 7797 (my office) 1645 Campus Center Dr., Rm 308 (801) 581 7481 (econ office) Salt Lake City UT 84112-9300 USA (801) 585 5649 (FAX)
