David Blaney

University of Sheffield Scholar Award, University of Sheffield - Political Science

I grew up in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and did my undergraduate work in Political Science at Valparaiso University (Indiana). I now teach Political Science at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN.  

My interest in political economy and the history of economic thought began as a graduate student in International Studies at the University of Denver. It is there that I first read Adam Smith and learned that reading economists can be fun, as long as you recognize that each thinker offers a global moral vision, for good or ill or both.  

I will be in Sheffield from September through March. I will continue research I have begun on economic thought, liberalism, and empire. I will be reading and writing about early British neoclassical economists somewhat against the grain as international theorists, who were fixated on the political, economic, and cultural/racial context of global competition and empire. Sheffield is a fertile intellectual space for such work. It also seems like a perfect launching point for hikes in South and North Yorkshire.