Harvard Law School, Critical Theory and a spot of Understanding: some podcasts

It’s been a busy stretch and I’ve been bad at posting. So a brief catch up on some podcasts from the summer of 2023.

In August I talked to Professor David O’Brien, University of Manchester, in a podcast for the New Books in Critical Theory network. I’ve known Dave for years and our conversation that ranged from the history of London’s stock exchanges to broader questions about the role of finance in society. He was delightfully complimentary: New Books describes Philip’s book as ‘essential reading across the social sciences and humanities’. The podcast is available here.

June brought an invitation to an ‘online book salon’, New Debates in the Sociology and Political Economy of Finance, hosted by Harvard Law School. I was in esteemed company: I spoke alongside the legendary Professor Donald MacKenzie of the University of Edinburgh and Dr Leon Wansleben of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies on the topic of ‘visibility and invisibility of finance’. You can catch the whole panel, and the others from the afternoon, here.

And finally, for a spot of ‘understanding’, try this, a contribution to Timon Wunderlich’s new ‘Understanding the World’ podcast. A tall order, perhaps, but we did quite well on stock exchanges. Less well, perhaps, on ‘a controversial opinion’. I couldn’t think of one. ‘But you like chilli pickle for breakfast,’ said Mrs R later on. Well, perhaps.

Across the Atlantic: on the IPO-VID podcast

Sometimes great things turn up unexpectedly. And so an invitation from the cheerful and startlingly well informed Patrick L Young, ‘former stock exchange CEO, long time derivatives trader, serial entrepreneur and fintech pioneer’ and general man about town. Patrick and I chatted for an hour and had a fun time. It was good to chat to an audience of professionals as well, although I don’t think they expected some of my answers to go the direction they did!

I’m pleased to say that when it comes to the nitty-gritty of setting up an exchange – although I spend the whole book avoiding that topic – Patrick and I had a great deal to agree on.

Patrick’s team also featured How to Build a Stock Exchange in the EI Weekend newsletter available on Medium and Substack. Well worth a look for those interested in actually setting up a financial institution.

Thank you again to Patrick and all his team.

At the Library of Mistakes, Edinburgh

What a fine place Edinburgh’s Library of Mistakes is – and what a great venue to do my first proper book talk for How to Build a Stock Exchange. Thank you to the Library’s Keeper, Russell Napier, for the invitation and for chairing the session.

Also, I got a brilliant mug!