Four Duke University economists will explore the legacy of John Maynard Keynes and discuss his place within the Bloomsbury group at an event marking the inauguration of Duke's new Center for the History of Political Economy.

The discussion, titled "John Maynard Keynes of Bloomsbury," will take place at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 17, at the Nasher Museum of Art, and is free and open to the public.

The panelists will be professors Bruce Caldwell, Craufurd Goodwin, Kevin Hoover and E. Roy Weintraub, and the discussion will be moderated by economics department chair Thomas Nechyba. A reception will follow. Space is limited, and reservations are required. RSVP to (919) 660-1848 or angela.zemonek@duke.edu.

The renowned economist John Maynard Keynes was an early member of the Bloomsbury group. Beginning with his time in the Treasury in World War I, and then as a private adviser to the Liberal Party, he engaged in discussions of economic policy in the 1920s and 1930s," says Caldwell, director of the new Duke center. "As a Cambridge scholar, he developed a general approach to economics that has frequently been invoked as providing tools for responding to the current financial crisis and economic slump. The panelists will examine the Keynesian legacy from a number of complementary perspectives."

Goodwin will examine the reciprocal connections between the Bloomsbury Group and Keynes, Weintraub will discuss Keynes's work as a policy adviser, and Hoover will look at the impact of his ideas within economics. Caldwell will examine Keynes' relationship with a man often portrayed as his nemesis, the Austrian free market economist Friedrich A. Hayek.

This program is part of Duke's campus-wide initiative, "Vision and Design: A Year of Bloomsbury" and coincides with the Nasher exhibition, "A Room of Their Own: Bloomsbury Artists in American Collections." For more information on the exhibition and year of programming, visit www.bloomsburyatduke.com.

The Center for the History of Political Economy was established at Duke in the fall of 2008 to promote and support research in, and the teaching of, the history of political economy. For more information, see http://www.econ.duke.edu/chope/.