1st Edition

Robinson Crusoe's Economic Man A Construction and Deconstruction

Edited By Ulla Grapard, Gillian Hewitson Copyright 2011
272 Pages 5 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

272 Pages 5 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

288 Pages
by Routledge

In this book, economists and literary scholars examine the uses to which the Robinson Crusoe figure has been put by the economics discipline since the publication of Defoe’s novel in 1719. The authors’ critical readings of two centuries of texts that have made use of Robinson Crusoe undermine the pervasive belief of mainstream economics that Robinson Crusoe is a benign representative of economic... Read more

1. Introduction Ulla Grapard and Gillian Hewitson  Part 1: The Robinsonades: The Development of the Unencumbered Rational Economic Man  2. Reading and Rewriting: The Production of an Economic Robinson Crusoe Michael V. White  3. Robinson Crusoe and the Secret of Primitive Accumulation Stephen Hymer  4. Robinson Crusoe and the Economists William S. Kern  5. Robinson Crusoe and the Subject of Economics Antonio Callari  Part 2: The Quintessential Rational Economic Man: Feminist Interrogations  6. Robinson Crusoe: The Quintessential Economic Man? Ulla Grapard  7. Robinson Crusoe: The Paradigmatic ‘Rational Economic Man’ Gillian J. Hewitson  8. Family Troubles Brian Cooper  9. Economic Man Lost in Space Ulla Grapard and Gillian Hewitson  10. Robinson Crusoe and the Female Goddesses of Disorder Christine Owen  Part 3: The Quintessential Rational Economic Man: Postcolonial Interrogations  11. Towards a Friday Model of International Trade Melanie Samson  12. Mercantilism and Criminal Transportation Anna Neill  13. What Would an African Student make of Robinson Crusoe? Eiman Zein-Elabdin  14. J.M. Coetzee’s Foe: the ‘Amazement of Reading’ Nicole Bracker

Biography

Ulla Grapard is Associate Professor at Colgate University, USA, where she teaches economics and women’s studies. A founding member of IAFFE, the International Association For Feminist Economics, her research concerns feminist critiques of economic theory and practice from a postmodern perspective.

Gillian Hewitson is a Lecturer in the Department of Political Economy at the University of Sydney, Australia, where she teaches in feminist economics, heterodox economics and the political economy of development. Her research is located at the intersection of feminist economics, postcolonialism and economics and the history of economic thought.