Gustav Peebles

About me

Gustav Peebles is an Associate Professor at the department of social anthropology. He has served twice as Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs at The New School in New York City and also led a research team that designed a new undergraduate program that addresses the multifaceted crisis in higher education in America today. With Dr. Emma Park, he is serving as Co-Principal Investigator for the Mellon-funded Sawyer Seminar, “Currency and Empire.” He is currently spearheading a Wenner-Gren Symposium—"The Price of Wealth”— with his colleagues Teresa Ghilarducci and Rick McGahey, a workshop designed to bring specific strands of economic and anthropological research together. 

He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in Socio-Cultural Anthropology, and a BA from Dartmouth College. His publications, including a book entitled, The Euro and Its Rivals, as well as a range of academic and popular articles, track credit, debt, money, and the diverse struggles to regulate and manage these vital economic phenomena throughout human history. Most recently, he has been exploring digital currencies, including work on the Swedish Central Bank’s e-currency proposal, as well as a wilder idea that leverages digital currency as a potential tool for fighting climate change.

In his spare time, he nurtures an almost pathological interest in the surprising threads that bind together the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Walter Benjamin. He lives with his wife and three children in Brooklyn, NY. He can be found on X @gustavpeebles.

Gustav Peebles' personal website.