In the summer of 2003 the Amsterdam-Maastricht Summer University again compiles masterclasses, workshops and seminars on a variety of topics. One of our courses “The Value of Culture” is going to present a cultural-economic perspective. In mainstream economics, the notion of culture is reduced to the action of self-interested individuals in chilly market institutions. Culture is squeezed into an overall discourse focused on 'rational behaviour,' utility maximising agents, and price-making markets. The critique on this standard economic perspective is growing in force (see for example http://www.paecon.net). Drawing on dissenting voices within and outside of the discipline, such as economic sociology, cultural economics, feminist economics, heterodox and Marxian approaches we will challenge the reigning economic paradigm. The main goal is to come to an understanding of the economy, and economic discourse, that goes beyond autistic economics and the concomitantly thin-blooded notion of culture. The course will investigate grounding economics in different and vital contemporary renditions of culture. Central questions that will be addressed are: how do cultural values and social relationships shape economic life; how do different notions of culture produce different understandings of the economy; how do gifts on the one hand deviate from, and on the other hand intermingle with market transactions; does the mode of financing of cultural goods (i.e. the arts, museums, cultural heritage) matter?

Course leaders: Arjo Klamer (Erasmus University Rotterdam); Jack Amariglio (Merrimack College, USA); Olav Velthuis (Columbia University, USA).

Fee 850 Euro