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Recording of Glory M. Liu’s 2023 Benson Lecture Released

Dr. Liu Explored the Legacy of Adam Smith's Writings on Capitalism in America

Posted by:
November 21, 2023

By Michael Halvorson ’85

On Thursday October 19, 2023, the PLU community welcomed Glory M. Liu of Johns Hopkins University to present the 17th Dale E. Benson Lecture in Business and Economic History. The lecture took place in the Regency Room of the Anderson University Center. There was also a pre-lecture conversation with Dr. Liu and students in Xavier Hall, hosted by Prof. Halvorson.

Dr. Liu’s lecture explored the legacy of Adam Smith in the United States and the influence of Smith’s ideas in American thought, politics, and culture. The talk related to Liu’s recent book Adam Smith’s America: How a Scottish Philosopher became an Icon of American Capitalism (Princeton, 2022).

This week, PLU’s Business and Economic History program released a recording of the lecture, complete with slides, introductory remarks by Prof. Halvorson, and a fascinating Q&A session with Dr. Liu. To view the lecture in its entirety, click this link. For questions about usage and appropriate citation for this resource, contact Michael Halvorson at halvormj@plu.edu.

Our warmest thanks to Dr. Glory M. Liu for visiting Pacific Lutheran University, and to the Benson Family Foundation of Portland, Oregon, for sponsoring the lecture series.

Short Biography of Glory M. Liu

Glory M. Liu received a PhD in Political Science in 2018 from Stanford University, where she was a Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center, as well as a Gerald J. Lieberman Fellow, one of the University’s highest distinctions for doctoral students.  She holds an MPhil in Political Thought and Intellectual History, a secondary MPhil in Classics from the University of Cambridge, and a B.A. in Political Economy and Classics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Liu has been a postdoctoral research associate in the Political Theory Project at Brown University (2018-2020), and a lecturer in the Social Studies department at Harvard University (2020-2023). In May 2023, she was appointed Assistant Director for the Center for Economy and Society and Assistant Research Professor at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins