History of Literary Economics

Catalog description

An examination of the contributions of fiction writers to the history of economic thought. Novels and short stories are analyzed in conjunction with studying influential and heterodox schools of economic thought. Fiction writers will vary by semester (e.g., Mark Twain, Edith Wharton, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Theodore Dreiser, Jack London, Ayn Rand, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Louisa May Alcott). Schools of economic thought examined include critics as well as advocates of free market capitalism.