Episode 102: Adventures in HET Podcasting with Maria Bach and Scott Scheall

0:00Hello, all. Just a brief note before we begin the show. I am Scott Scheel, producer and former co-host of Smith & Mark's Walk Into a Bar, the History of Economics podcast, and this is the first ever crossover episode between Smith & Mark's and Ceteris Never Peribus, the History of Economic Thought podcast produced and hosted by my friend and colleague Maria Bach. In this episode, Maria and I are interviewed by Francois Alisson, Maria's co-worker. They actually sit across from each other in the same office and current co-host of Smith & Mark's Walk Into a Bar.

0:31Just a quick note about the sound quality of this episode. For reasons that are not worth mentioning, we had to record this interview in a semi-public location, actually the lobby of a working hotel in Lausanne, Switzerland. So, despite our best efforts to maintain the highest audio standards, you will hear a bit of background noise throughout the episode. We apologize for this, but we don't think it's too distracting, and we hope, in any case, that you enjoy the episode. So now, on to the show. Good morning, and welcome. My name is Francois Alisson, Senior Lecturer at the Center of Al-Rosparetto, University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

1:09And since 2023, I've been one of the co-hosts of the podcast Smith & Mark's Walk Into a Bar, a History of Economics podcast, together with Jennifer John and Chinla Agdoran. But today, I have the pleasure to host a very special episode, one I think many people have been waiting for, or at least I have. A crossover between the only two English-language podcasts dedicated to the history of economic salt.

1:43Wow. So, let me introduce my two guests here in Lausanne. Maria Bach, who is an assistant professor at the Center of Al-Rosparetto here in Lausanne, and also my colleague. Good morning, Maria. Good morning, Professor. And Scott Scheel, who is an associate professor at the Center for Economics, Politics, and History of the University of Austin in Texas. Good morning, Scott. Good morning, Francois. Thank you for having me.

2:14Thank you for inviting me here to Lausanne, and it's a pleasure to be with you today. The pleasure is shared. So, today's conversation brings together not just two historians of economic salt, but also the minds and the producers behind the only two English-language podcasts entirely devoted to the field. Before we begin, let's hear the jingles from both shows. First, Maria's podcast, Ceteris Never Paris.

2:46The great economist John Maynard Keynes once wrote of the foolish things a man thinking alone can come temporarily to believe. Fortunately, I did not have to think alone. And neither do we. Welcome to Ceteris Never Paris, the History of Economic Thought podcast, where all other things are never equal. And now, second, Scott's podcast, Smith and Mark's Walk Into a Bar, a History of Economics podcast.

3:19These two podcasts play an important role in shaping how we think about and communicate the history of economics salt. So, I've prepared a cross-interview with nine questions to explore exactly that.

3:51Are we ready? I'm ready. Absolutely. Yes. So, first question is about the origins. Could you tell us, each of us, the story of how your podcast began? What was the specific trigger, a moment that started it all? And whether you see it as an academic project, a personal project, or something else, even? And, oh, yeah, where does the name come from? Let's start with Maria. Yeah.

4:21Thanks, François. It's great to do this episode. I've wanted to do this for a while. So, Reinhard Schumacher, who did a thesis on Adam Smith and progress, we were walking across a bridge in Budapest in, I think, well, it was eight years ago. Beautiful city. Yes, a beautiful city, yeah. We were at the INET Economics Festival, and we'd organized something there. And we were just talking about how we listened to podcasts, but not about our field, because they didn't exist then, and how it would be really cool if we did something too.

4:56And I think both of us had this idea that we could learn a lot from that, and it would be nice to talk to people for once, rather than always reading. And for then, maybe we assumed that probably there'd be other people like us that also would be interested. And along with, so Reinhard and I said, yeah, let's go, and we had a few other people at the time who were also interested, and we launched this thing. And the name was, the first idea we had was Cetris non-paribus, which is this idea that context matters.

5:31You can't isolate one variable and see what happens, right? And because Reinhard and I, and the other people that were involved at the beginning, we tend to do a kind of history of economics that thinks that context is important, right? It's not to say that we only invite those kinds of historians of economics on our part, but that was where we come from, epistemologically, perhaps, if you want to say. And then non-paribus was taken. So we've come up with Cetris never-paribus after a few months, we realized we had to change it.

6:02We had a long discussion, by the way, whether it should be the History of Economic Thought Podcast or History of Economics Podcast. And I'm a bit jealous of your podcast that you took the History of Economics, because, and that was just, I gave in. I wanted History of Economics, and the rest wanted History of Economic Thought. But don't you have a subtitle, isn't it? Yeah, the History of Economic Thought Podcast. Okay. And it's not the History of Economics. But here's the thing, you, I, my memory is that you had settled on that, the History of Economic Thought Podcast, before we had finalized what our name was going to be.

6:34Absolutely. So after you had settled on that, we felt that we had to use an indefinite article. So ours is a History of Economics Podcast, not the History of Economics Podcast. Because you had already, you had already declared yourself to be the History of Economic Podcast. So we could just be another one, right? It's like the British Society for History of Economic Thought that's called the history. And I thought that was so obnoxious. I apologize for also having an obnoxious name. Well, one of the, one of the, sort of, totally off topic, but Ohio State University in the United States, people who attend Ohio State University describe it as the Ohio State University, as if there's some other Ohio State University.

7:17And it sounds very obnoxious when they said the Ohio State University, as if it's somehow special. But anyway, so to tell you a little bit about the history of Smith and Marks, you know, when I think about it, I'm not quite sure where the name came from exactly. I think that Carlos Eduardo Supignac and I and Gerardo Serra, who were the original hosting team, were bantering back and forth about possible titles. And one of us came up with Smith and Marks walk into a bar, you know, that's supposed to be the setup of a joke.

7:54Smith and Marks walk into a bar and then there's a joke that follows it. But, but, but, but we never, we never tell you what exactly the joke is. Um, so where did it, where did the idea sort of come from? I, I was listening to podcasts as well at the time. I had been, um, kind of attracted to podcasts by the, um, there was the, the famous American podcast Serial, which was a true crime podcast that came out, I guess, 2012 or 2013, sometime around there.

8:29And everybody in the United States was listening to that at the same time. It became a very hot sort of cultural thing. And that's when I started listening to podcasts. So I started looking at different podcasts. And one of the, one of the podcast series that I liked the most was, I believe it's still running, although I haven't listened to it in years. It's, it's a show called the partially examined life and it's a, it's a philosophy podcast. And it, it consists of three, uh, former graduate students in philosophy, none of whom actually finished their PhDs, but they, but they continue to be very interested in philosophy.

9:05And so they created this podcast about 15 years ago where they would get together and talk about either a particular philosophical topic or interview, uh, a philosopher. Um, and it's very, I mean, it's very serious. They're very intelligent guys, but it's also very funny. They're, they're, they're friends. They're, they're longtime friends. And so there's a kind of banter and there's a kind of comfort that goes along with how they interact with each other. That's sort of very, very appealing.

9:36And I just liked, I liked the show. I liked their interaction and I sort of stole their model for Smith and Mark's walk into a bar. I thought, who are two people that I know in the field that I have a close relationship with, who, um, who, with whom I could have this kind of bantering, sort of humorous kind of, kind of, uh, kind of relationship. And Gerardo and Carlos are two of my oldest and closest friends in the field. So I, they were the first people that came to mind.

10:06And, and, and we do have the three of us sort of a, a humorous relationship where we can talk, we can be serious. We can talk rigorously about, uh, about, you know, topics in the history of economic thought, but we can also, uh, maybe sometimes be funny and, and, and witty. And, um, so that was really the, the origin of the show, the, the thought that we could do something in the history of economic thought that was like what the partially examined life was doing for philosophy and, um, yeah.

10:37And that, like I said, I don't know what, I can't recall who came up with Smith, Smith and Mark's block into a bar, but it's, it's turned out, it's been a good, good, a good name for us. Everybody gets the joke when we, when we say it to them. So I also wanted to add it. And I, I'm not sure what you think about this, Scott, but the, you asked whether it was an academic or personal, personal project. And I think for me, it definitely, it was personal in the sense that, as I said, I wanted to do something that I, I wanted to learn something new. I wanted to do something that I enjoy. And so it's part of some, part of my work that I enjoy the most.

11:10And so for that, it's personal in the sense that I've chosen that this is a project that I enjoy doing. But then I do think it's academic as well, because I think I, first of all, I have a very keen, I have a very strong idea that I need to invite people on this show that don't always get the space to talk about their research or research that is understudied, but also people that don't necessarily get airtime. That's not always the case, but I do have that in the back of my mind. So in that sense, I think it's an attempt to diversify academia from my little, very

11:45tiny space and very small amounts of power. And I think actually, thankfully, these kinds of projects are actually helping people in their careers, right? So my podcast is actually now starting to really help me get things in academia, because, because people are realizing that it actually is something quite helpful for academia. Well, that was a major consideration. I mean, it would be difficult for me to answer the question about whether it was more academic or personal. I think it was a bit of both.

12:16One of the thoughts that was in the back of my mind in putting together the podcast was in academia, you have certain responsibilities that are distinct from your research and your teaching responsibilities. You're also expected to engage in what is typically called service. And service can involve, well, I'll just be honest and say service is the part of the professor's life that professors tend to like the least, because it's the part that's least under their control.

12:46They get assigned committee responsibilities and different kinds of responsibilities. And if you don't, I have found in my career that if you don't kind of fill up your own service profile with things, if you don't, if you don't engage in the being on the executive committee of the history of economic society, that kind of service, if you don't edit a journal, if you don't do things like this, your university will find things for you to do, right? They will find things to keep you busy.

13:17They will make you do things that you don't want to do. So to some extent, the podcast was, and it was a way for me to say, hey, look, I've got this major service responsibility. I can't serve on that committee because I'm busy running this podcast, which I enjoy doing and which I find much more interesting and rewarding than I do committee service at my university. So it sort of served that role. It was a bit of a, it was a bit of a service function and I could use it as an excuse to not

13:49have to do other less pleasant things. But, you know, there was an aspect of, oh, certainly there was an aspect of self-promotion, right? I'm going to create this podcast and my name will be known and everybody will be listening to me and how special will I be? Uh, but I, I think that it was, it was just as much motivated by my desire, like Maria was saying, to give a voice to historians of economics that, uh, that they couldn't, that they couldn't

14:26express in other kinds of contexts. There really were no or very few public forums for historians of economics to talk about their work. And I also thought, of course, that there was probably a small, but nonetheless, an audience out there for, that would be interested in learning about the history of economics from the most knowledgeable people in the field. And so, uh, it was a, it was a combination of factors that, that sort of motivated me

14:57to, to start the podcast. I knew, I mean, you invite young scholars on your podcast too, which is really important. Yeah. And it, like you said, it has become, I think a, um, a vehicle for our own personal success. It looks good on our CDs to be doing this, uh, but it's also a vehicle for the success of the guests that we bring on, right? I think it provides them with a, with a forum. Um, I've had people say to me that, you know, they've, um, in job interviews, they've said

15:28things like, well, why don't you listen to my, why don't you listen to the episode? So if you want to know more about our research, why don't you listen to the episode of the podcast that I was on? Right. So it serves a professional function like that. Thank you. I'm ready to move on to the next question. The next question is about the format of your podcast. To put it a bit caricaturally, uh, YouTube podcasts embody the most opposite format. It's a narrative scripted storytelling documentary on one side and multi-host academic conversation

16:01on the other. Why did you choose these formats? And, um, do you ever find yourself envying the oldest format? Well, I think that's a, that's a good question. I mean, like I mentioned, I kind of just, I kind of just copped or stole our format from this, uh, previously, previously existing, uh, podcast that I really enjoyed the partially examined life. And, uh, you know, we should mention that at one point, I think before either of us actually posted episodes, we discovered that we were working on these projects together.

16:33At the time, Reinhard Schumacher and I were coauthors on a project on, uh, Carl Menger, actually the Menger family. And, uh, so we were working, uh, separately in parallel and developing these podcasts without any knowledge that we were doing this. And when we found out, Reinhard and I were like, wait, wait, what are you, what's going on? And so there was very briefly a discussion about maybe combining forces and just having one podcast. And, but I think that the reason that we ultimately decided not to do that was because we, we figured

17:07out that we were, we had very different ideas in mind in terms of what we wanted to do format wise. We were kind of committed to this three person jovial discussion with, with someone, uh, someone in the field talking about their research. We also do these literature, literature review episodes, which are kind of maybe closer, a little bit closer to what, to what you do. At least they're most, they're more focused on the actual substance of, of the, of the history of economic thought rather than on a, on a personality.

17:39Um, but yeah, I, we've talked about doing things that are a little bit more like what Maria does. We've talked about doing, you know, maybe a series on whatever it might be, Adam Smith or Karl Marx or John Maynard Keynes or something, maybe a multi-part series where you dig into the substance of their work. And maybe, maybe we'll, maybe we'll do that at some point. Um, but we haven't done it yet.

18:10And, and I think one of my hesitancies about going down that road would be the, the, the work involved in preparing all of that. Right. I mean, for the most part, preparing our podcast, Francois is not that difficult, right? We have a conversation about what guests we want to invite. We speak to the guests, we arrange a date when we can, when we can all get together and do the interview. We record the interview, we edit it, we post it. Whereas I think there would be a whole lot of pre preparation involved in trying to do

18:44sort of a multi-part series on a particular topic or something like that. Um, yeah, I think probably we haven't done that more out of laziness than, than anything else. So, um, so yeah, I, I, I envy your, your approach. Yeah. So I think my answer is the same as Scott's. It's just that I don't, we don't have the same preferences of podcasts. So I much prefer listening to podcasts that are highly edited with, as you said, this narrative storytelling kind of idea where you have lots of different voices, different perspectives

19:16and, and it's not, you also have different perspectives of course, cause you're different, different people, but as in the idea that I'm scripting that narrative and telling the audience, the things I want to at the, at certain moments. Right. And I, I enjoy that process of finding the right story, just like we do in our articles and our books. Right. But it's, it's, um, much smaller, much less contents, right. In, in a podcast. So I, I enjoy that kind of creative work. Um, and I, as I said, I like that kind of product, so I'm making what I more enjoy listening

19:51to. Right. So I think it's a personal taste. Um, and then, but then that also, you know, has, um, yeah, has disadvantages in which Scott you pinpoint, it takes a lot more time and it's not just time actually sitting, inviting people and then doing the interviews and then cutting and so on and doing the editing, which obviously takes hours. Right. Um, but it's also the, my, my story coming out, right. Which takes just time. It takes, we had a chat yesterday.

20:22Right. And I might be interviewing you for my next series on reveal reports. Right. And, um, and it's just about me meeting people and realizing, Ooh, that person had a really good idea. Um, and, and then, and then, and then, you know, finding the time to interview them and then kind of sitting on that audio material for sometimes it's months, right. Before I then sit down and edit because I've like, I've, I've, yeah, these ideas have matured in my head and I figure out what it is I want to tell the, my audience. Um, but that means then that I'm not coming out with podcasts every month, um, episodes

20:57every month. Like that's not something that I, and I don't put those deadlines on me. Sometimes I do a little bit of like, I'd like this series or this episode to come out this year. Those kinds of bigger deadlines I have, but they're not, they're not strict. Um, and I think in the end it, yeah, it means that, you know, I'm at my 50th episode. You're at your hundredth. That's the reason. Right. Um, but I think, and I remember us having this discussion at the beginning when you said we might merge it. We, we come to that conclusion right now and I thought we thought it was just excellent that

21:27there were two of us, there were two different and we were going to do things differently and therefore we're going to supply even more, um, you know, entertainment, I hope, but also, you know, knowledge to, to the community. Yeah. There's definitely a sense of why better, more is, more is better in this, in this regard. Right. Um, you know, about the, about, uh, regularity with which we post episodes, we have always tried to maintain a monthly schedule and tried to post on the 15th of every month.

21:59We've, we've been doing that pretty much since the beginning. And I think we've only missed the 15th on very rare occasions. In fact, a month or so ago, we recorded, we recorded an episode on the morning of the 14th that I had to edit and have posted by midnight. Um, and I made it, I managed to do it, but so I've been a bit of a, of a drill instructor or a bit of a dictator when it comes to maintaining that, that, um, strict. And I, and I did that in part because I think that's, that helps us to build an audience, right?

22:29No, the, the audience, knowing that there's always going to be a new episode of Smith and Mark's walk into a bar on the 15th, I think helps us to maintain, uh, uh, an engaged, um, uh, audience of listeners. Yeah. Nice. Let's move to my third question that, uh, Maria just touched a bit saying that in constructing a narrative is almost like writing a paper. And so my question is about podcasting as history writing. Do you see podcasting as another way of writing history and, or what does the audio format allow

23:06you to do that academic writing doesn't allow you? Yes. So I recently had this question in a job interview and I was very happy to get it because I love talking about this. And so it means that people are starting to reflect on this in general in academia, which is fantastic. And I, and I really, it's not a publication. It is not, um, like scientific history writing in the way that we write our articles and books. I think that's quite important, A, because it's not peer reviewed, B, because I'm the

23:39one, you know, dictating the questions and who I invite on my podcast at least. I mean, I'm the only one left in my podcast, right? So that can't be scientific because it's just me. It's my perspective on the world, right? But then I will say that, um, the kinds of questions I can ask in an interview are very different than the kinds of questions we ask ourselves when we're writing, right? And so that means that we can come up with different answers just because of the questions we can ask. And I think people dare say things.

24:12First of all, it's oral communication, right? So it's much, it can be much, sometimes people are much clearer when they speak rather than when they write or, and there aren't as many, um, academic guidelines as to how we speak and so on. So I guess it's sometimes easier to understand what people are saying. And also the things that they can come across with, with, you know, the tone of voice, et cetera, can be different than in writing. And then just the fact that they can say things on my podcast that they just can't write in an article, right?

24:42Um, for many different reasons that I think there we're touching on knowledge production, right? Which is what I think we analyze in history economics, right? And I think in that sense, it can be useful, um, sources of knowledge, um, for history of economics, um, right? I've thought a fair amount about, about this, about the significance of our podcasts for scholarship. Um, I don't know that I would say that I, I don't think that the Smith and Mark's walk

25:18into a bar is a form of academic writing or any, or, or really much like academic writing, although it is about academic writing. However, I do think that, um, it's likely that if they haven't already, uh, our shows will end up, uh, being quoted in, in future work, um, precisely because, uh, at least in the context

25:48of our shows, we oftentimes have authors elaborating in ways on their work that doesn't necessarily appear in their written work, right? So if there's something significant that is expressed on the show that might have research value for someone else in the future, I wouldn't be surprised. Like I said, if it hasn't happened already, if there are quotes from, from our guests, um, that appear in future, future, uh, research articles. And, um, you know, I thought I've done a fair amount of archival work.

26:22In fact, uh, I was at Duke with Gerardo Serra. We were fellows there in 2013, 2014, yeah, 2013, 2014, and, um, he and I would have conversations about the changing nature of archival research and how I was there working in the Manger archives. And of course that, that meant working with documents from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, uh, diaries, uh, correspondence.

26:55And it dawned on me, uh, it dawned on, I think Gerardo as well, that that's not what the future of archival research is going to look like, right? In the future, we're going to be, uh, reading through emails, not correspondence, not letters, right? We're going to be reading, we're going to be looking at files, computer files, not, you know, not, not, not, not file folders. Uh, and I think that probably, um, podcast, I, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if, uh,

27:28years from now when we've decided that we don't want to do this anymore, if some archive didn't ask for our materials, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a, uh, I'm not, I'm not sending out, I'm not, I'm not suggesting this, but I wouldn't be surprised if someday, uh, Smith and Mark's walk into a bar is part of the Duke Economist Papers, uh, project, um, at the Rubenstein Library at Duke. I wouldn't, I wouldn't be surprised if that were to happen. Um, and I think that probably there would be some research value for anybody that would

28:02want to really engage seriously with, um, some of the interviews that we've done. Um, um, so yeah, I think that, I think podcasting, what its significance is for research is still not determined, but I think it will have some significance for future research. And I do just want to add it that wasn't in specifically in your question, but the, the fact that it can have this, um, impact, which you mentioned earlier about getting us a wider

28:34audience, I mean, as academics, we are supposed to, um, actually communicate our knowledge to the wider public, right? That is part of our role as professors. And so that I think I've made a couple of episodes like that, that are directly, um, targeted to a greater audience. It's true that lots of my friends have listened and said, oh, this is really great that I can start to understand what you do. Right. And, uh, that, that's also really important. That's a perfect transition to the next question. I think because my next question is about the audience and the reception of the show.

29:08And, um, um, I would like to know who is listening to your podcast, uh, what is the audience you originally had in mind and what it happened to be, uh, if you ever get some feedbacks and if you, if you ever had some surprising feedbacks or responses in short, what do you know about it's your audience? Well, I think I'll, I'll, I'll maybe take this one first. Um, who is listening to our, our, our podcast?

29:38Well, I know for sure. I, I'm fairly confident that, uh, pretty much the entire community of professional historians and philosophers of economics subscribe to Smith and Mark's walk into a bar. I can see it in our statistics. Um, within 24 hours of a new episode being posted, uh, there are 1,000, 1,200 downloads

30:09of the show and how many historians and philosophers of economics are there in the world? I would say maybe about a thousand, right? So, so I, I, in my mind, at least I, I, I always conceive of it as as soon as the, as soon as a show hits the internet, um, everybody in, in our, in our little community is, is listening. And I, I, I hope that's how it is. I, I, I like that. I like that idea. Um, I always wanted the show to be broader than that though. And I don't know how well we've succeeded at engaging with a broader, more general audience.

30:46Um, part of the problem, um, I think this is true of both of our shows, um, part of the problem is finding that kind of happy medium or that, that sweet spot between, uh, intellectual rigor, intellectual seriousness and general appeal. Right. Um, there's a lot of what, what in American terms, you would call inside baseball, right? People, people within a field talking about that field and people that are outside of that field might not be very interested in that sort of discussion.

31:17So, um, it's hard to find that sort of balance between, uh, things that are interesting to, uh, the general audience and things that are interesting to profession, to professionals in the field. I mean, just take, for example, Adam Smith. I mean, the things that, uh, that a, a general, uh, non-professional, uh, person is likely to want to know about Adam Smith is going to be much different than what a professional is going to be interested in. And also what a professional is going to say about Adam Smith.

31:49I mean, it's very likely that a true Adam Smith scholar is going to say things that are so complex and detailed about Adam Smith that they're just going to fly right over the head of the general non-professional. And so finding that balance of keeping the general audience listener engaged while also saying things that are interesting, uh, from a professional perspective is, is hard to find. Uh, and I don't know, I don't know that we've ever really, I think we probably lean more in a professional direction than we do in a general audience kind of direction.

32:22Uh, I'll, I mean, I, I'll, I've had very interesting feedback from our audience members. I guess this, I guess this is, this is a funny story. Uh, the one and only time that I've ever been asked to, uh, for an autograph, the one and only time that anyone has ever asked me for an autograph was a young scholar at a, at a history of economic society meeting. And I don't remember what year it was, maybe 2019, uh, and he came up and asked for my

32:53autograph. And I, of course I laughed. I just thought it was hilarious. I signed, I signed my name, but, um, yeah, so that's a bit strange. I guess there is a, a weird kind of celebrity that comes along with doing a show like this. And, um, I didn't feel comfortable signing an autograph. I hope I never have to do it again. Oh, you may have several people asking you now just to annoy you.

33:21So, yeah, I, um, I think there are two things here. So, uh, to answer your question directly, my audience, I think it's very similar to Scott's idea. You know, it's, it's, we post on the shoe list, um, society's history of economics mailing list, right? Where there are about a thousand subscribers. And, and so, and of course I used to, um, put it on Twitter where I think I had a bit more influence, but now that doesn't, that's dead. Blue sky is too small. Anyway. So, and we do post it on Facebook as well, which helps, I think.

33:54But so I think it's mainly historians of economics and, um, um, um, I think, and I, when I go to conferences, lots of people that I don't know come up to me and go, oh yeah, you're Maria. Like I clearly people, I clearly have some kind of, you know, influence on, some kind of impact on, on the community and they know who I am just by that, which is, um, I don't know if it, it's good for my ego. I don't know if I have a big enough ego, but it's very, makes me very comfortable in conferences

34:25more than before when you, cause when you're a bit unknown at the beginning as a young scholar, it's nice to kind of just feel like you belong because people, because you're doing the podcast while you belong in this community. So that's quite nice. So I know, yeah, historians of economics, but I think, but then there are two other audiences. One is an academic, larger academic audience, and then there's the greater public, right? And the larger academic audience, I definitely am trying to get a hold of actively. So I did a podcast when I first become, became a mother, um, also during COVID, which made parenting

35:00very difficult. And so we did an episode with Reinhardt and Beatrice Cherie on parenting. And that I have to say, my colleagues here in Huzan, who I've sent it to their, um, they're not in history economics, but they find that super helpful. And I've had lots of, um, you know, remarks about that because it would be helpful. I think that's helpful for academia in general. And I think probably also other fields, um, for how to deal with parenting when you're building a career, right? Then there's the, the supervision series that I did.

35:33Yes, I interviewed only people in my field because I wanted people that I knew and that were recommended to me to talk to, um, but that they're very, very general ideas about how to supervise a thesis. And that, you know, it's clearly, um, something that can, is applicable to the whole academic community. And then this new series I'm working on, a review of reports, which is actually Beatrice Cherie who told me years ago, you need to do this, Marie. And that I think, again, is something that can be applied to a prospecting. Now, in terms of a wider audience, I mentioned earlier that I, there's one particular episode

36:05that I produced, um, inspired by a Radiolab episode called the Cataclysm Sentence. I don't know if you know what that means, but it's this idea, like, what would you, if you, all of us die on the planet and new, you know, new aliens come to the, new species comes, comes to the planet and you want to transfer one base of knowledge to them, what would be the knowledge you transmit or leave behind, and it is, it has to be in a sentence. And so I, when I, I decided to produce a podcast with six students at the American University

36:40of Paris when I was a professor there. So with students, right? So young economists, they're bachelor students. So I knew that they would push me to make an episode that would be understandable by most such people, right? And it was just fascinating. We interviewed lots of different people of what, what, and they would have to come up with a Cataclysm Sentence. There was one historian economics, but there was a feminist economist. There was a environmental economist. There were lots of different types of comments. Um, and that, as I said, I think there, that could have a wider audience if I also had the

37:11platform to get it out there, but I, but I don't, but, um, and that I would actually like to do more of, and I think it's something we can do with students. So it's also an, an, an interesting pedagogical tool to teach history. Yeah, very much so. Excellent. And this leads to my next question, which is even more complicated for you to answer is what, what do you feel is the role of podcasts in the discipline in, in the history of economics? So, do you think it is used as teaching tool or do you think it is used, uh, as a way to

37:48speak within colleagues, uh, among colleagues? So, um, what is the role of podcasts within our community today? Marie, you want to take this one? Yeah, I can start. So I think the, um, I use it a lot in my teaching as in, I have it on my, I have lots of podcast episodes on my syllabus, my syllabi, um, as kind of, you know, I have reading and listening, you know, like subheadings, right. Under each, um, part of my syllabus.

38:20And I think now whether they listen to these or not is, is another question, right? But I think they're a very good way to engage a community now too of students and younger people that, that are familiar with this, um, format and also perhaps are more willing to listen than to read. I'm not sure that that's true, but perhaps it's true. And I do it with also when I meet master's students and PhD students, it's also really helpful for me to have podcasts to say, episodes to say, well, go listen to this episode, you

38:52know, and they are often PhD and master's students. They will go listen for sure. It's very helpful. Um, and, and I, but then I've also used it as a, as I just said, um, as a valuation tool to get them to be used to podcasts. Now with AI, I can't have them do it at home. So there's a, I'm, I'm, I'm still just deciding how I can do that now with AI, but, um, I found that actually that getting students to produce, um, podcast episodes is a very, very good, um, form of evaluation.

39:24Um, so that's one role teaching. The second role, um, I think it does, as I said at the beginning, I think I do want to get people's, you know, books out there into our community. And I often pick like books that are not necessarily in economics to have us speak to our community. So kind of to obviously very directed at my own personal interests, right? Which I think is quite normal, but, but it, that like kind of, I want to have the most disciplinarity

39:57and that, that talk, have different disciplines talk to each other. I think that's a useful role in the podcast for wealth too. Um, I think I'll leave it at that for now. I, I think this is an interesting question. I, I know that I've personally used, uh, I've used podcasts generally as a teaching tool in my classes, but I've used, uh, Smith and Mark's Walk Into a Bar specific episodes as, as, uh, a teaching tool. I recall, I think it was, um, Margaret Chavis wrote a book on, well, she's a Hume scholar,

40:32but she wrote a recent book on Hume a couple of years ago that I, I referred my students to, uh, when we were talking about Hume in, in, in class. Uh, there've been a couple of occasions where that has happened. I think I, I think there was a class where I, um, posted on my syllabus a number of different episodes that I thought were relevant to the, uh, to the course material or to the, yeah, to the material in the class. Um, I think that it's also the case that, uh, I mean, podcasts provide another forum for

41:11people to promote their work. So I think that, you know, getting back to the audience question and getting back to sort of the impact question, um, I know that, I know that there are people who, uh, when I contact them about potentially being a guest will say, I've been waiting for you to ask me for years. I've been wanting you to ask me for years. Right. Uh, and I think in part, that's a personal thing because they kind of like, they, they like, they like the, the respect that comes along with being asked to be involved, but

41:46also I think they think that it's an opportunity for them to talk about their research in a form in which they don't usually get to do so. I mean, there's a sense in which, you know, a podcast is like, uh, at least sort of the way that we do it is, is kind of an international lecture, right? It gives an opportunity for, for, uh, for a scholar to speak to a much broader group of people than they, than they ever could just going to a university and giving a talk here and there. Uh, so I think, I think it, I think, and that, that also connects up with the possibility

42:19of it being a way of increasing the visibility of the field. I mean, like I was saying to earlier, I don't know how well we've done at Smith and the bar, Smith and Marks in terms of, um, expanding our audience beyond sort of a narrow academic one, but, um, I think that, uh, you know, it, it, it plays some role in, in making the history of economic thought, I think, a bit less of a strange or niche, niche discipline.

42:51Um, yeah, yeah, I imagine people outside of our field find us, you know, around the podcast app.

43:03Yes, we're ranked, uh, number 10,000 in history and society. I don't know. I don't know what our ranking is. It's not very, not very high. And among the top three in the history of economic history. Um, let's now turn to the, uh, my sixth question, which I, um, called the economics of podcasting, because making a podcast, as you know, is time consuming and resource intensive. And I would like to ask you very briefly, what does the production process actually look like

43:36for you? And if you get support from somewhere? Uh, well, emotional support, I could use, I could use some emotional support sometime. We started, uh, when the show first started, we received a small grant from history of economic society to, uh, support the, the podcast, at least its initial foundation. We use that money to buy some microphones, to buy a mixing board. Um, we paid for the, it costs, it costs money to store the data for a podcast, usually a monthly

44:09fee or something. So we, we use that money for that, that money ran out about a couple of years ago. Um, a couple of, I think we had, I think we only asked like a thousand dollars. It doesn't, it doesn't cost that much money. So after we'd spent down that thousand dollars ever since then, I've been subsidizing the, the data storage myself, which I don't mind doing. It's only $15 per month. It's not that expensive. Um, so we did have support. We, we no longer have support.

44:41We thought about the possibility of going back to the history of economic society and asking for more money, but they wanted us to basically submit a new proposal and to speak, talking about the, the economics of podcasting. Like I just didn't want to take the mark. I didn't want to take on the marginal cost of having to write a new proposal and paying $15 a month is much, much better to me. It's a much better option than having to write a new, a grant proposal. God, no. Uh, so, um, the production process nowadays is I think a bit different than it was when

45:16it, when we first began, because when we first started, Carlos and Gerardo and I were very much sharing the, the production responsibilities, Carlos would take care of scheduling and, and Gerardo would be more involved in writing the script at writing the questions. And, um, ever since Carlos and Gerardo left and I sort of stepped back from the hosting role, I serve as the producer. And so what does that job involve, it involves, uh, communicating with the hosts about who

45:50they want to interview, what topics they want to discuss, whether in any given month, we want to do a literature review episode or a young scholars episode or a more traditional sort of interview style episode. Um, and then I take care of all of the coordinating, corresponding with the potential guests, uh, uh, coordinating in terms of scheduling. Um, I, I, Francois can tell you, I sometimes will send dozens of emails to a single guest before we manage to settle on a particular time and date.

46:23Uh, and then of course I handle the recording aspects and the post-production aspects. So, uh, uh, any more, we just use, uh, zoom for the recording and then that recording is uploaded to, uh, audacity, which is a audio management system. And I do the editing on audacity and post it to our, our website. Um, so it's, it's time consuming, it's resource intensive, but it's enjoyable.

46:58I, I, I, and I feel that it has value for the history of economic thought. And so I'm willing to make certain, call them sacrifices. I'm willing to pay certain costs to ensure that the, that the show keeps going and that it continues to, um, to have an audience and, uh, and post regularly. So yeah, it's, it's time consuming. It's in a sense expensive, but I'm, I'm happy with that.

47:27Maria? Yeah, I know lots of people ask me this question. Like, how would you have time to do this, Maria? And I'm a one woman shop. So yeah, I do, um, it all, which honestly I don't, I, I don't mind too much. It would be nice to have a partner at one point. So I, I'm going to, the position is open, but, but I do, um, I, I think I enjoy all parts of it in any case. So it doesn't, as you said, I'm willing to make the sacrifice. We, in terms of like being very, um, specific, we, I used to use zoom, but now I don't have

48:00access to that subscription anymore. So I use teams and you just record. And honestly, that's super easy now since COVID. Right. And then you get an MP3 file and I used to use Audacity, but that wasn't working on my Mac. So I had to use GarageBand, which is just the Mac variant of, there was a little bit of sunk investment there in time and learning a new software. But honestly, these, like, I often say, if I can do it, anybody could do this. It's not very, it's not very difficult. And, and of course, the, also the end product is not particularly, you know, I'm not, I'm not

48:31the radio, I'm not a, I'm not a trained journalist or audio editor. So, um, it's very simple stuff. Um, and as I said, when I'm editing one of these longer kind of, um, episodes where I'm editing lots of different voices, it's extremely time consuming, but it's also really, really interesting. It's very creative work. Um, and it's, um, yeah, it's, it's just really fun. Um, so I, I mean, I, it's very difficult for me to say exactly how much time it takes,

49:04but I guess I could say that for a, a one hour episode where I have lots of different voices, I mean, you're talking at least three full days of work, like at least depending on whether, you know, the audio is good or whether you've already figured out the story before or something, but it does take a long time. And then of course, you know, you have to, you have to decide who to invite, although there now I have this long list of things I want to do that, that that's not so much of a problem anymore, but, but then you have to invite them, you have to find time, um, and then you record, which is what actually takes the least amount of time, right?

49:36Just sitting down for about an hour and then, um, getting the MPP file and then, and then just finding the time to kind of, um, to, to sit down and do the editing. And we have a WordPress, um, website, which we pay way too much money for to store these episodes, but it's very, very easy to use and to post. Um, but I do need to find a free solution, which now exists because I've only, so Reiner and I have been paying this alone for a few years before then we had a bigger team.

50:06And so that we all kind of chipped in last year, I managed to get some funding from my university. I might try and do this because for university it's peanuts. For me, it's a little bit more money. I pay about twice as much as Scott. Uh, but it's true that when we started eight years ago, this was new, right? And so now there's a lot more options, but there's this, it's, would, it's going to take me a few weeks to figure out how to move everything and so on. Um, so yeah, the economics is, um, I mean, it's actually, it's actually quite cheap.

50:38I think, you know, I think people don't, I think people think that it's more time consuming and more expensive than it actually is. And more technologically sophisticated, right? Yes, totally. Pretty easy. I guess we shouldn't be saying this out loud because people now think that we're not as impressive as well. Now we're going to have good competitors soon. Well, that's good. That's good. My next question is about the editorial choices. How do you decide which topic or guests to include in your show?

51:07You want me to just try? Yeah, by all means. Like, as I said, I'm only one person. I just choose who I want to talk to and who I want to meet, you know? Like I, I, yes, I think, as I said, I think a little bit about the fact that I want topics that are not generally talked about a lot in history of economics. At least, you know, you go to Eshet and these topics are not really there. So I tend to pick those kinds of things. And that's also what my research is on, right? So it's not so easy, it's not so difficult for me, rather, to know and find these kinds of books and people behind them, you know?

51:38So I choose for that. But then it's true that I do get people, like, do get requests, right? So this supervision episode was definitely a thing I realized by just talking to people that people don't really know how to supervise a PC. They, they, nobody, like, yes, they're starting to have trainings now at universities, but I went to one a few years ago. It's not that you, well, it depends on who's there, but it's not, like, it gets you to reflect,

52:09but it doesn't actually give you any kind of concrete information. That sounds like every university training session that I've ever attended in my life. Yeah, well, I don't know. I did one on pedagogy, which was pretty darn good at LLC, but yeah, it depends. Yeah, that's true. It depends on who the professor is there as well, but, like, anything. But then, so, so there, and then this, like, the mini-series on reviewer reports that I'm, is in the making, that's Béatrice Cherieux, who's, like, just very frustrated at the fact

52:39that people were pushed into this thing at the beginning of our careers, when we barely, you know, know how to research ourselves, and then we're expected to do this, and we don't know what it's about. So, yeah, I do get requests as well, which I take quite seriously. And a request from, you know, would be from anybody. And if I feel like I am capable of doing it, then I do it. I like that. I like that you're doing that because, I mean, I've thought a lot about exactly what I think you just referred to, the sort of disconnect between the substantive training that we receive

53:15in graduate school and the lack of training that we receive with regard to being an academic, right? I know that when I was in graduate school, nobody taught me how to do a job interview. Nobody taught me how to do a job talk. Nobody taught me how to deal with referees. We were talking about this yesterday. I think, you know, I've known people in my career who submitted one paper, got it rejected, and never submitted another one, right?

53:45Because they were just so emotionally tasked by the rejection. They didn't know, weren't able to deal with that rejection and kind of bounce back and keep going with the publication process. And I think that probably in all fields, but certainly in philosophy where I was, and I think in economics as well, there's something to be said for graduate programs investing in resources that are going to actually help their students find jobs when they graduate.

54:16What a silly thing. Why would you even want to do that? So in terms of how we choose topics on Smith and Marks, really, it's all determined by the hosts. And so another way to reframe the question might be how have I settled on the hosts, either originally or the current team of hosts, there's always been a desire on my part to have people with eclectic interests.

54:49So, you know, the original team was myself, Gerardo, and Carlos. And between those three people, you have a boring Hayekian, someone who is interested in the history of economics and history of economic thought in Africa, in Ghana in particular, which is a very unique topic. And you have in Carlos, someone who is very interested in classical and pre-classical political economy and the history of economic thought in Brazil.

55:21And so because we had different interests, we would want to bring on different kinds of people. And so we've always had an eclectic array of guests. And that continues to this day. Our current team of hosts, Francois, Chinla, and Jennifer, you have an expert on the history of Eastern Europe and Russian economics. You have in Chinla, you have another, someone who's interested in classical political economy.

55:51She's a mill scholar. And in Jennifer, you have someone who's sort of a kind of traditional historian, a philosopher of science with interests in economics. And so between the three of them, they're always, they're always suggesting interesting names. So oftentimes it'll be, you know, when a new book comes out in the history of economics, oftentimes we want to interview that, that, that author. Um, but, you know, Francois has been very helpful in sort of broadening and diversifying the array

56:22of guests that we bring on the, on the show, because he's so knowledgeable about people that I, that I don't really, that I wouldn't know Japanese scholars, scholars from other parts of the world that I'm not familiar with. Um, and he encourages us to bring them on and we've had some wonderful guests along those lines. Um, and, and Chinla also, uh, has, makes wonderful suggestions of, of people that are sort of outside of my narrow range of vision. So, um, so the, the, the topics, the guests are selected by the hosts and, um, somehow we've

56:54succeeded in always having a diverse and eclectic array of hosts. So that is, that has led to us having a diverse and eclectic array of guests. Excellent. Now, uh, my eighth question is about your personal trajectories along, among podcasts. Uh, has the podcast changed your relationship to economics and, to the history of economics and, um, has it influenced you in the way you do research or teaching or do you feel more

57:27do you feel more now of a public intellectual?

57:33Well, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll start with the, I'll start this one. I, I will admit, you know, I, I mentioned earlier that there was an aspect of self-promotion when I, when I sort of originally came up with this idea, there definitely was an aspect of, Hey, this is a, this is a way for me to get my name out there and people will know me. And I think that there was a time, um, part of the reason why I entered into academia. I, when I was younger, I think I aspired to be a public intellectual.

58:05I think I kind of aspired to be one of those people that's regularly interviewed on CNN and MSNBC and Vox news and someone who was a political pundit. I mean, who would be a, who would be a comparable kind of, um, public figure, you know, I don't know, maybe a William F. Buckley or, uh, or a, uh, William F. Buck, I mean, one, Buckley's been dead for 20 years. That's a, that's someone of a younger generation, but who are, who are today's, uh, I guess maybe Rachel Maddow, although she's kind of more of a host, but you know, someone, someone like

58:35that, someone that the public looks to for, for wisdom about politics and society. And, um, I think that starting the podcast was in the back of my mind, a way for me to begin on that trajectory. Now I should say that I have totally turned my back, totally rejected any, uh, desire that I ever had to be a public intellectual, because in recent years, I've actually had a fair amount of engagement with public intellectuals. And I realized that, uh, public intellectual is actually, um, it means non-intellectual.

59:10Public intellectuals are not intellectuals. Most of the public intellectuals that I've met, that I've engaged with, uh, personally, not the brightest bulbs in the world, certainly not as bright as my academic peers. And so I'd much rather just be a boring, old, unknown, unpopular, non-public intellectual who's serious about scholarship and who makes a real contribution to, um, to knowledge rather than a quote unquote public intellectual who goes around, uh, spouting off nonsense and,

59:43uh, trying to attract attention to himself. So, yeah. That's funny you said, I go, I'm thinking back to why I wanted to do a podcast. And I guess I've always, I did a lot of acting as a, as a, as a kid. And so I enjoy being on stage. But I, when I did this, when I started this podcast, I, I don't think I ever assumed that people would listen to me. I've got some acting too. I have an IMDB page. Ah, okay. Don't look at it. No, I won't look at it. Don't worry. Um, so I don't, I, I, when I made this, I didn't, that was, I had no expectations about

1:00:14who would listen to me, whether anyone would, and I actually don't care because I enjoy doing it so much. I have such great conversations with people, um, that I don't, so I'm, I'm, so I'm not so keen on the whole, like, I don't think that's what I, my goal is to become a public, um, uh, figure. I'm not, I'm not sure if, if, you know, if that's what people think of me, okay, but I don't think so. And now, so my relationship with history of economics, I think that I, as a, as a person,

1:00:46I've become a person that is, you know, alive in the community. Through this podcast in the sense that I can contact people, give them this privilege to being asked to be on a podcast. Most people will say yes, cause they feel honored. And then I get these, I build these relationships and it's thanks to the podcast, right? So in that sense, I think I have a network of people and therefore enjoy my work more as a result of this, of this podcast because of these relationships. And then in terms of like actual knowledge, so I've started, I've realized that when I

1:01:17ask one person to come on and talk about often a recent book or their work, I always ask them the question, what method or approach they use, because it's something I'm personally very, very interested in and something I've published on and want to do more on. And kind of this, it goes blank to back to how to supervise. I think we need to talk more about how to do history of economics to our young scholars because that was really lacking in my PhD, like how do I go about doing this? And so there I actually learn a lot because people will often not put their theory or

1:01:52approach or method in their books because their editors won't let them, but they can talk about it on the podcast, right? So that, in that sense, and I think we, like, as I said, so one of the reasons, and there I guess I'm assuming the impact of, I'm assuming people listen, I, I've said this before, but I do hope that the podcast brings about a diversification of academia, right?

1:02:22Of getting people on there that are not necessarily given space to do so. And, and I, I don't know if I'm going to succeed with that, but I, in that sense, that's part of my personal trajectory because that is why, that is why I do what I do, is to change the kinds of things we study in Netflix, change the kinds of ways we see the world. Right. We come close to the end of this interview and, uh, I have the last question. How do you see podcasting in the history of economics in the next years?

1:02:53Why don't you go ahead, Marie? Oh, that's fine. Well, you were just, I mean, you were saying some things that were relevant, so. Yeah, so, I mean, I think I, I hope we continue on our, on our two paths and, and, and, and, and, you know, manage to prioritize it, um, because I, and I think that that's, I'd say it, because it's not obvious, right? I think sometimes priorities change and I, but I hope for this, that it stays in place because I think both of our podcasters are, are helpful to the field, um, I have lots of ideas for my

1:03:25podcast that I haven't, um, had time yet to put in place. So one is, and this is why I would like Francois, um, I think you're kind of a little bit involved in this because the, um, the, so on our door, Francois and I share office. I'm probably the luckiest person in history of economics because I share an office with Francois. And on our door now, we have the name of our little office, which is actually a cafe. It's become the center's cafe. We have an excellent coffee machine with good coffee. And on the, on this door, we have a name now, which is, uh, Marx en Inde,

1:03:56Marx in India, which is a complete joke, right? Because Marx never went to India, although he wrote loads on India, but of course it's named that because if you know Francois and I, I work on India, Francois works on Marx, right? And we also have a huge painting of Karl Marx that is beautiful in our office. Shocking. I was scared by it when I walked in. And, um, and so I would like to start a series in my podcast called Marx en Inde, Marx in India, where I interview all the PhD students that come through the center, Balas Baito Center.

1:04:28Um, and so that's one, but that's just a little tiny little idea, but it just to kind of gather, to kind of understand how PhDs go through their PhD and what they think. So the idea would be to interview them once a year during their PhD. And I think they're coming back to this like tacit knowledge about how are we academics? How do we live in this, in this space and how do we do our work? Um, and I think the center, Balas Baito Center is really, we have more PhDs than, than most places and it's a good place to go. That's one little future thing. I don't think I have bigger

1:05:04ideas than that. I like that. I like that idea. I, um, you know, I, I don't, I don't can't really foresee the future. Um, we just, uh, recorded our 100th episode of just posted. In fact, um, today is the 14th of May. It'll go live on the 15th of May. So before you hear this interview, you will hear that 100th episode. And there was some discussion about what we might be doing moving forward, whether the current hosts want to, want to move, whether anybody wants, whether I want to bring on new hosts. And the truth is, is that I'm very happy with the way

1:05:37that things are right now. I love the team of hosts that we have. I love the way the process works. It's, we've got a pretty streamlined, it's almost like a pretty efficient machine. Um, and so that can go on in perpetuity. Now, having said that, I would like to do some different things, right? I would like to do some different kinds of episodes. Um, I think maybe our sort of interview format can get a little bit stale, um, over time. And so maybe mixing it up a little bit, maybe doing some more

1:06:07literature reviews or maybe doing, uh, more, we used to do more in-person interviews where we would actually be in the same place with someone. And that was always nice for various reasons. I would like to do that some more. Um, but we've always had this goal of doing Smith and Mark's walk into a bar in a bar. So one of these days when all of the hosts, when I as producer, when we're all in the same place, we are going to find a loud rowdy bar and we are going to do an episode of Smith and Mark's walk into a bar from there. So, um, you know, I, I don't know that

1:06:42I can promise another a hundred episodes. I think that would be great if we did manage that. But, um, I, but having said that, I have no plans on ending the show anytime soon. I have no plans on shifting hosts anytime soon. You know, so long as you guys are interested in continuing to do it, we'll, we'll continue to do it. So, um, yeah, that's how I see. Interesting. So this was the crossover episode between Satter is Never Paribus and Smith and Mark's walk into a bar. Maria, Scott, thank you both for this wonderful conversation and for

1:07:15everything that you do for the history of economics community. Thank you. Thank you for everything you do. Yes. Yes. Thank you so much for this and for, for being a part of Smith and Mark's walk into a bar, a history of economics podcast. For another episode of Smith and Mark's walk into a bar, a history of economics podcast.