Professor McCloskey gave a fascinating seminar on Friday. My remarks before her talk are after the fold in the post. More information on Prof. McCloskey is available here and here.

Prof. McCloskey was also interviewed on the Pa Kenny show about Gender Crossing and her latest book today. You can listen to the interview here.

***Remarks before Prof. McCloskey's Seminar***

2007-10-04

***Before the Seminar***

Hi, Thank you all for coming.

Today the Department of Economics is delighted to welcome Deirdre McCloskey.

Normally introducing the speaker is easy. I get up, explain who the speaker is, what the title of the talk is, and sit down again.

But how do you describe Deirdre McCloskey?

I decided to think about what it is she frequently does. She writes, so she's definitely a writer. She teaches, so she's a teacher. She lectures, Presides and upon occasion prognosticates. She criticizes, she reads, she thinks about society now and in the past. I'm sure she spends an awful lot of time breathing, too. We could go on ad nauseam. She is concerned with language, the liquid we as members of society are all dissolved in, so then she is a linguist/chemist, stirring this liquid until something interesting coagulates and bounces off the glass.

I decided to stop there before anyone got hurt. Professor McCloskey is one of a few in her generation considered a 'broad gauge intellectual' to paraphrase Nobel Laureate Robert Fogel.

Personally I'd class her with Robert Heilbroner as, quite simply, an intellectual: someone who uses her intellect to work, study, reflect, speculate on, or ask and answer questions with regard to a variety of different ideas.

List of her accomplishments:

* UIC Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1999-present.

* Professor of Social Thought, Academia Vitae, Deventer, The Netherlands, 2006-

LOVE THIS ONE:

* Professor Extraordinary, Department of Economics, University of the Free State, South Africa, Jan-Dec 2007, 2008 (in residence March 2007, 2008).

BA & Ph.D from Harvard.

President of the Midwest Economics Association, Economic History Association, Social Science History association, One of the Founders of the Cliometric Society,

Author of 360+ articles and author or editor of 21 published books with at least 5 in the pipeline.

On Oct 20, she is to receive an honorary doctorate from The School of Business, Economics and Law, Götenberg, Sweden.

All of which is simply me framing, a serious person, an intellectual.

Now for the easy bit: the title of her talk: Today her talk is on the "Cult of Statistical Significance".

I give you Deirdre McCloskey.

*** After Seminar***

Thanks, etc.

Present Gift.

The Next Seminar will be on Wednesday, October 24, 2-3 in this room.

The Speaker is Dr. Alan Ahearne from NUIG, I"m sure you'll all have seen him on the news.

The title of the talk is "Internal and External Current Account Balances in the Euro Area".