Call for papers

Dialogue on economics curriculum reform between Chinese and Western Scholars

15^th WAPE Forum, Athens, 31 July to 1 August 2020

Dear Friend

We cordially invite you to submit proposals for papers on curriculum reform and economics teaching, for a discussion at the forthcoming conference of the World Association for Political Economy (WAPE), which will be held in Athens from 31^st July to 2^nd August, and is hosted by the Greek Association of Political Economy and Panteion University

WAPE’s annual conferences have for sixteen years been unique opportunities for collaboration and exchange between Chinese and Western scholars and its two peer-reviewed English language journals, World Review of Political Economy and International Critical Thought, are securing growing recognition. We attach the call for papers which can also be accessed at: http://bit.ly/30jdVpJ

During the recent decades Mainstream Economics are exerting an increasingly suffocating dominance upon the study of the economy within the academia. Their utterly conservative, pro-capital, but methodologically unrealistic perspective – despite its flagrant failures – displaces every other alternative perspective and particularly that of Political Economy. Despite numerous attempts, especially by students disenchanted by the arteriosclerotic Mainstream perspective, for a more open and pluralistic landscape in economics curricula this stranglehold continues unabated. It is time for the Political Economy tradition to increase its efforts for the reversal of this dismal situation.

This issue is at the core of the forthcoming 15^th WAPE Athens conference.

This year’s event is a unique opportunity for European heterodox economists of plural perspectives, both because the conference – which is held in a different city each year – is in an easily accessible and pivotal location, and because of the growing concern, in China, with the content of formal economics teaching and its domination by monotheoretic, neoliberal ideas.

We think this provides an opportunity for Western heterodox economic scholars of different theoretical perspectives, who have long been concerned with the way economics is taught, to engage with their Chinese counterparts.

We invite proposals for papers on this topic. Please send an abstract (500 words)and your full curriculum vitae in English to alanfreeman@umanitoba.ca, politiceconomy@gmail.com and wapemember@vip.163.com by 20 March 2020.

Acceptance letters and instructions for registration will be sent out by 1 April 2020.

Cordially

Stavros Mavroudeas

Alan Freeman

Wolfram Elsner

Henry Leveson-Gower