The PPE Library is part of an innovative project of the VU Library called Re:Book. The VU Library houses 30 kilometers of books that are largely hidden from students, staff, and the general public in the library’s stack rooms. The aim of Re:Book is to find creative ways of bringing these books out in public again by, for example, finding a spot for them on campus.
The PPE Library came into being thanks to the efforts of Michèle Meijer (subject librarian for Philosophy, Religion, and Theology at the VU Library) and the support of the Dean of the John Stuart Mill College, Roland Luttens. With the help of the staff at the College, Michèle curated a collection of core works in PPE—a selection of the writings of important thinkers in the disciplines of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. Additionally, Michèle coordinated a collection of “staff picks”—a section in the PPE Library where students can find book recommendations by their teachers.
The opening of the library started with a few words by the Dean of the John Stuart Mill College, Roland Luttens. He explained his personal connection to these core texts of the “discipline of PPE” and how excited he is to now have them directly available for PPE students to read: these books are foundational milestones in the interconnections between the three PPE disciplines and are therefore immensely important for the field! Furthermore, they not only represent an important academic resource, but also create an inspiring study environment. Michèle Meijer then described the genesis of the PPE Library and how it contributes to the VU Library’s efforts to make its vast book catalogue more accessible to students, staff, and the public. Anouk Nuijten (subject librarian for Humanities at the VU Library and project leader of Re:Book) followed up with a presentation of the Re:Book project and its various initiatives across the VU campus, such as a Pride Library on the 11th floor of the Main Building, regular “book safari” trips for students into the thirteen floors of the VU Library’s stacks, a book installation by artist Henk Schut—and now the PPE Library.
The PPE Library is split into two sections: “PPE core thinkers” and “PPE staff picks”. The “PPE core thinkers” section includes all 33 volumes of the collected works of John Stuart Mill, and selected writings by, among others, Confucius, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, Baruch Spinoza, John Locke, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Jeremy Bentham, Adam Smith, Mary Wollstonecraft, Alexis de Tocqueville, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, Joan Robinson, Jan Tinbergen, Hannah Arendt, W. Arthur Lewis, John Rawls, Michio Morishima, Frantz Fanon, Jürgen Habermas, Samir Amin, Amartya Sen, Partha Dasgupta, Gayatri C. Spivak, Angela Y. Davis, Iris Marion Young, Seyla Benhabib, and Cornel West.
Every PPE staff member was invited to pick their favorite PPE books or books they think are important in the development of either of the three disciplines. These texts are part of the “PPE staff picks” section, which includes both books on pressing contemporary topics, such as decolonialization, poverty traps, and conspiracy theories, and books on general themes, such as natural justice, justifications of the state, wealth accumulation, and much more.
The opening of the PPE Library concluded with two types of presentations. First, Nele Faßhauer (a second-year PPE student) invited students and staff, and especially first-year students, to join the “PPE Paper Club”—a bi-weekly series of meetings where staff and students read and discuss a PPE-related paper picked by a member of the Club. Then, professors and lecturers presented a selection of their “staff picks” for the PPE Library, explaining why they think that every PPE student should read these books. John Hogan, who is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at the VU and who teaches a second-year PPE course in international relations, picked Robbie Shilliam’s Decolonizing Politics: An Introduction. According to one of John Hogan’s PPE thesis students, this is a book that “should be a mandatory reading for all PPE students”. Marina Uzunova, who is a Lecture at the JSMCollege, recommended Michèle A. Pujol’s Feminism and Anti-Feminism in Early Economic Thought—a “pioneering text in feminist economics”, exploring the role of women in the development of (neo)classical economics, from Adam Smith to Arthur Pigou. Finally, Roland Luttens recommended a number of important books by authors such as Robert Heilbroner, Samuel Bowles, Brian Skyrms, Ken Binmore, and Robert Frank, especially, highlighting Heilbroner’s The Worldly Philosophers—a lively introduction to the lives and thought of influential economists and “still the best book on the history of economic thought".
If students want to borrow a book, the only thing they have to do is send an e-mail or a WhatsApp message to the VU Library: see the posters around the PPE Library for instructions.
Happy reading!