Stefano Ugolini is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Toulouse (Sciences Po Toulouse and LEREPS). He was educated at Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa (MA modern history, 2004), Sciences Po, Paris (PhD international finance, 2009), and the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva (Norges Bank post-doctoral fellowship, 2010). A specialist in monetary and financial history, he has contributed to the research projects of a number of central banks. Dr Ugolini’s research provides long-term views on topical economic issues, including – among others – central banking, monetary policy, foreign exchange regimes, financial crises, economic integration, market microstructure, and the microeconomics of banking. He is the author of The Evolution of Central Banking: Theory and History (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).
Yana Stainova on Musical Enchantment in Venezuela
Yana Stainova is a sociocultural anthropologist and an Assistant Professor at McMaster University. She is interested in art, urban poverty, social inequality, migration, and the lived experience of violence in Latin America. Her research explores how people summon music practices to pursue visions of social justice in the face of political turmoil and barriers to immigration. Her first book project entitled Sonorous Worlds: Musical Enchantment in Venezuela studies how young people coming of age in the urban barrios of Caracas use music and stories to push back against the forces of everyday violence, social exclusion, and state repression. Her second book project, tentatively titled The Politics of Joy: Collective Art Practices across the US-Mexico Border focuses on Latinx migration and artistic practices in North America.
A correction: El Sistema was founded in 1975. Hugo Chávez won the Venezuelan election held in 1998 but officially assumed power in 1999.
We are now offering FREE classes through BERGEN GREEN. Our online political economy class just started Wednesday 3/3 (but it’s not too late to sign up!) and is open to all. Check out the full list of offerings here.
Rajeev Dehejia on School Choice
Rajeev Dehejia is Professor of Economics and Public Service and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University. He is also the co-director of NYU’s Development Research Institute. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University in 1997. He has been on the faculty of the Department of Economics and The Fletcher School at Tufts University and of the Department of Economics and the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, and has held visiting positions at Harvard, Princeton, and the London School of Economics.
We are now offering FREE classes through BERGEN GREEN. Our online political economy class just started last Wednesday 3/3 (it’s not too late to sign up!) and is open to all. Check out the full list of offerings here.
Professor Nkechi Madonna Agwu and Indigenous African Mathematics in Modern Education
Professor Nkechi Madonna Agwu has taught mathematics for over 30 years in Nigeria and the United States. She is a Professor at the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC), City University of New York (CUNY). She is a generalist, in that her research, teaching, and scholarship intersects with the sciences, arts, social sciences, and humanities. She is a recipient of a Carnegie Africa Diaspora Fellowship, and the Founder of CHI STEM TOYS Foundation, an NGO geared towards facilitating STEM and entrepreneurship education among under-represented groups of people, particularly girls and women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), and in rural and vulnerable communities in Africa.
We are now offering FREE classes through BERGEN GREEN. Our online political economy class just started last Wednesday 3/3 (it’s not too late to sign up!) and is open to all. Check out the full list of offerings here.
Edward Dickersin Van Wesep on GameStop (and Indeterminate Asset Prices)
Edward Dickersin Van Wesep is Associate Professor at Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado Boulder. Professor Dickersin Van Wesep and Brian Waters recently coauthored “The Sky's the Limit: Asset prices can be indeterminate when margin traders are all in.”
Our next book club meeting will take place on April 6th. It will once again be hosted by Fiori Sara Berhane. We will (Zoom) meet at 7pm EST and will be reading The Ministry For The Future. All are welcome!
Sign Up Here
Thorvaldur Gylfason on Truth, Failed States and the Future of Iceland (and the U.S.)
Thorvaldur Gylfason is Professor of Economics at the University of Iceland. He is also Research Fellow at CESifo (Center for Economic Studies) at the University of Munich, Research Associate at the Center for U.S.-Japan Business and Economic Studies at New York University, and Fellow of the European Economic Association. He has published over 170 papers in international journals and books and over 40 scholarly articles in his native Icelandic, in addition to 20 books, including eight collections of essays in Icelandic and about 900 articles in newspapers and magazines as well as some 90 songs for mixed choir, voice, piano, and other instruments.
In recent years, he has been a frequent Consultant to the International Monetary Fund and also the World Bank, the European Commission, and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA).
His current research is mostly in the field of economic reforms, constitutions, natural resources, trade, and growth. He was elected to Iceland's Constitutional Assembly in 2010 and appointed by Parliament to a Constitutional Council that drafted and unanimously passed a constitutional bill delivered to Parliament 29 July 2011.
Our next book club meeting will take place on April 6th. It will once again be hosted by Fiori Sara Berhane. We will (Zoom) meet at 7pm EST and will be reading The Ministry For The Future. All are welcome!
Sign Up Here
Grace A. Musila on the Life and Work of Wangari Maathai
Grace A Musila is an associate professor in the Department of African Literature at Wits University, Johannesburg. She is the author of A Death Retold in Truth and Rumour: Kenya, Britain and the Julie Ward Murder, which explores Kenyan and British interpretations of the 1988 murder of British tourist Julie Ann Ward in Maasai Mara Game Reserve, Kenya. She also coedited Rethinking Eastern African Intellectual Landscapes with James Ogude and Dina Ligaga. She has written articles and book chapters on eastern and southern African literatures and popular cultures. In this interview we discuss her book Wangari Maathai's Registers of Freedom.
Our next book club meeting will take place on April 6th. It will once again be hosted by Fiori Sara Berhane. We will (Zoom) meet at 7pm EST and will be reading The Ministry For The Future. All are welcome!
Sign Up Here
Marco Ranaldi on Capitalist Systems and a New Way of Looking at Inequality
Marco Ranaldi is a postdoctoral scholar at the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality at the Graduate Center, CUNY. His research interests lie at the intersection between economic inequality and political economy, with a focus on inequality measurement and the comparative analysis of economic systems. He holds a PhD in Economics from the Paris School of Economics.
Our next book club meeting will take place on April 6th. It will once again be hosted by Fiori Sara Berhane. We will (Zoom) meet at 7pm EST and will be reading The Ministry For The Future. All are welcome!
Sign Up Here
Music by Podington Bear
April Book Club: The Ministry For The Future
Our next book club meeting will take place in April. It will once again be hosted by Fiori Sara Berhane. We will (Zoom) meet on April 6th (@ 7 pm EST) and will be reading The Ministry For The Future. All are welcome!
