Humanities as technology in teaching economics

The purpose of this paper is to consider the promise of humanities as technology in the teaching of economics. Many students expect humanities and technology to be substitutes rather than complements. This paper seeks to leverage this expectation by challenging students to instead consider humanities as itself a technology-indeed, a very powerful technology. Three examples of humanities as technology are discussed. First, as an extension of essay examination technology, instructors might ask students to prepare one-act plays that are situated in the context of the work students would most wish to engage upon graduation. Second, we might ask students to prepare term papers in which they discover principles of economics in poetry. Third, instructors might feature philosophical tracts such as Plato's Republic as a platform for discussing a number of economic concepts at both the principles and upper-division levels. These technologies arguably make learning economics more interesting and more permanent for students than would otherwise be the case.