pkt mini-conferences

["RICHARD P.F. HOLT" <holtri@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Pkters,
After asking if there was any interest in having mini-conferences over
pkt I received a lot of positive responses. Again, we would pick a topic
or an issue and people would post a page or two and might refer to a paper
they have written on the topic which I would put in the pkt archives.
Then we would carry out discussion on the topic and the postings for
a period of time. After the conference I would organize the papers
and responses and put it in a directory under the title of the mini-
conference. I think it's important to continue our practice of having
discussion develop whenever it wants to, but it also might be nice
to have some discussion on topics that are well-defined, organized
and come to an end and can be saved for future dialogue. Many people
have written me saying that there's a discussion that's going on
that I'm really interested in but it's hard for me to keep up and
the discussion might drag on for a month and so I lose continuity.
The idea  behind the mini-conference is to allow pkters to be able
to see the whole of the discussion in its context. Again, I think
its important that people should feel free just to throw ideas out
over the network anytime they wish. That's an important part of pkt
but this might add another dimension to the network.
So, what I would like from you folks is some ideas of topics and
issues that you would like to see us discuss. Pkt came about to
allow non-traditional voices to be heard and to support heterodox
economics defining heterodox in a very broad way. One of the
reasons why I'm so interested in heterodox thought is that if
there's hope for a new paradigm, a new model, a new way of looking
at the world and trying to come up with solutions to solve the
many difficulties we are facing, I believe, those answers will be
coming from the non-traditional voices. Historically that has been
true and I think it will continue to be and pkt is a way to get
those crazy ideas out there for discussion. So I think there's
a lot of important topics and issues for us to discuss and so
please share some of the issues you would like to see us talk about.

On another issue. A graduate student from the New School approached
me ( thanks Ed ;-) ) about setting up a listserv for graduate students
in economics. This would be a network allowing graduate students to talk,
and discuss issues that would be of interest of for graduate students.
Also undergraduate students have approached me talking about the difficulty
of using regular mail to get information about graduate programs in
economics. So this network would serve that purpose also. Does this
sound like a good idea setting up a listserv for graduate students?
I personally support the idea because I want to hear what the young
people in our profession are thinking about. If you support this idea
and have suggestions about a grad student econ. network let me know.

A final issue, should  we have a directory in the pkt archives for
job advertisements, particularly those for heterodox economists?
Given the onslaught by the end of the summer if we are interested
in this I would need to start working on this fairly soon. Again,
let me know. Any other ideas about pkt? Let me know.
-Ric Holt