FOUNDER Michael Murakami, seminar of '01 Harvard University '01, BA Univ. of Calif., Berkeley '08, Ph.D. WEBMASTER Shterna Friedman '04 Barnard College '03 Iowa Writers' Workshop MFA '06   CRITICAL REVIEW FOUNDATION Prof. Samuel DeCanio '98, Pres. Prof. Jeffrey Friedman, Exec. Dir. Bruce Canter, Vice President Dan Greenberg, Vice President Prof. Earl C. Ravenal, Vice Pres. Jaime Sneider '01, Director Phineas Upham '01, Director

A question from the audience during the Critical Review Foundation Conference on Political Ignorance and Dogmatism, Boston, August 31, 2008.

The final panel at the Critical Review Foundation Conference on Political Ignorance and Dogmatism: L-R, Jeffrey Friedman, Tom Hoffman, Russ Muirhead, and Mark Pennington (not shown: Ilya Somin).

LATEST NEWS:

• Dain Fitzgerald interviews Slavisa Tasic (seminar of '09) on his recent article in Critical Review on the overconfidence of regulators. Listen here.

• The University of Pennsylvania Press has agreed to republish our special issue on the financial crisis in book form, under the tentative title of The Causes of the Financial Crisis. And Judge Richard Posner has agreed to write an Afterword to it.

• Mateusz Machaj has successfully defended his dissertation, entitled "Property Rights in Socialism and Capitalism: A Comparative Analysis," at the University of Wroclaw, where he has assumed the position of assistant professor of economics and management. He attended the 2009 summer seminar, coauthored one of the key articles in our special financial-crisis issue. His article on Hayek is forthcoming in 2010.

• On June 16 and 17, twelve schlolars ranging from recent Ph.D.s to advanced college undergraduates came to San Antonio from as far away as Kiev to participate in the eleventh "Challenges to Classical Liberalism" seminar. These intensive, 1000-pages-of-reading-in-advance events have been held since 1995 whenever a critical mass of extremely talented future scholars, usually with a background in Austrian-school economics, has materialized. Among the alumni of the seminars whose research agendas have been materially affected by their participation are Profs. Sam DeCanio (Yale), Tom Hoffman (Spring Hill College), Michael Murakami (Georgetown), Mark Pennington (London), Ilya Somin (George Mason), and Nick Weller (USC).

  This year's group promises to contribute many more names to that illustrious list. Watch this site in the near future for the accomplishments of Ryan Berg, Bogdan Enache, Dain Fitzgerald, Micha Ghertner, Kai Jäger, Mateusz Machaj, Gary Merrett, Guinevere Nell, Justin Shubow, Isak Sky, Slavisa Tasic, and Chris Wisniewski. All are headed into academic careers in economics, law, or political science. Chris Wisniewski has already contributed a paper to CR (vol. 19, no. 1)--a critique of the field of Cultural Studies for failing to "study" (as opposed to ideologizing), and for not really understanding "culture" (as opposed to alleged capitalist false consciousness). Matt Machaj has a coauthored paper in the financial crisis issue (vol. 21, nos. 2-3)--arguably the most important one in the issue--explaining the role of the Basel capital requirements in inducing the crisis. Guinevere Nell has a paper forthcoming in CR that sheds new light on the actual nature of "real, existing" socialism. And Slavisa Tasic has a paper forthcoming on the cognitive psychology of bureaucratic "expertise." Photos of the seminar are posted on this site--click on Photos icon to your left.

• Sam DeCanio (seminar of 1998) has accepted the position of Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University, where he joins John Bullock (seminar of 1999) on the tenure track.

• Michael Murakami (seminar of 2001) has accepted the position of Visiting Assistant Professor of Government at Georgetown University, where he will ride out the job-market depression in style.

• On August 31, 2008, at the conclusion of the American Political Science Association convention in Boston, the Critical Review Foundation held its first-ever scholarly conference, at which Profs. John Bullock (CR seminar of 1999), Sam DeCanio (’98), Tom Hoffman (’95) Mike Murakami (‘01), Mark Pennington (’96), Ilya Somin (’97), and Nick Weller (’03) explored the implications of public ignorance with eminent scholars from the United States and Canada. The dialogue continued for six hours and, as many commented afterwards, nobody left early who didn’t need to catch a plane!

  Click on Photos in the left margin to see some pictures of the event. A videotape of the entire event is posted under Audio & Video to your left, and a transcript of the conference was published in Critical Review vol. 20, no. 4..

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