John Alcorn teaches debate-based, interdisciplinary seminars about idiosyncratic types of organizations, markets, & behaviors.

• Mafia: organized crime, markets for private protection, and codes of honor.

• College: academic institutions, markets for academic credentials, and informal social control on campus.

• Sports: teams & leagues, markets for sports contests, and the code on the field.

• Prohibitions: case studies in the limits of individual liberty and markets. Topics: Lifestyles (polygamy, firearms, mind drugs); Markets (sex, kidneys for transplantation, adoption); Information (blackmail, prediction markets, advertising); Migration; and Making & Taking Life (abortion, genetic engineering, suicide).

John Alcorn has a weakness for unique acoustic guitars and enjoys rambles at dawn with his beloved weimaraner dog, Dexter.

Fellowships and grants: Fulbright commission, Social Science Research Council, National Endowment for the Humanities, Fondazione Agnelli, Columbia University (Whiting Fellowship and President's Fellowship), Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society in Culture, Trinity Center for Collaborative Teaching and Research, Cesare Barbieri Endowment for Italian Culture.

Awards: Italian American of the Year (Italian American Legislative Caucus, CT). I Migliori - The Best in Mind and Deeds (Pirandello Lyceum, MA).