“Towards the 250^th anniversary of The Wealth of Nations”

YSI Pre International Adam Smith Society Conference Workshop in Lecce, March 2025

Pre-conference workshop, 27 March 2025

Lecce, Italy

This pre-conference workshop offers young and early career scholars working on Adam Smith a chance to discuss their work in detail with peers in a friendly and supportive context, and to get feedback from world-leading Smith scholars.

Introduction

The YSI History of Economic Thought working group is organizing a one-day pre-conference workshop on 27 March 2025 ahead of the International Adam Smith Society (IASS) annual conference in Lecce, Italy (28-30 March 2025).  This is an excellent opportunity for ten young scholars working on Smith to be able to discuss their work in detail with peers and senior Smith scholars.

2026 marks the 250^th anniversary of Adam Smith’s magnum opus, the Wealth of Nations. Seeking to build on the momentum of Smith’s 2023 tercentenary, this major anniversary invites scholars to revisit his groundbreaking work of political economy.  A special issue of the Adam Smith Review will mark this anniversary and scholars presenting at this workshop and the subsequent conference will be invited to submit their papers for publication. In addition, up to three workshop participants will be invited to the University of Chicago in Paris to complete their papers following the conference. They will benefit from Faculty support and a workspace, providing the optimal conditions to prepare their papers for publication. The workshop’s title “Towards the 250^th anniversary of The Wealth of Nations”, deliberately leaves space for a broad range of approaches to re-interpreting Smith’s great work, including, but not limited to:

• The historical significance and legacy of Smith’s political economy
• Explorations of Smith’s ideas in light of today’s socio-economic challenges
• Re-interpreting Smith’s political economy in the context of his wider philosophy

Description

Participants will be asked to pre-circulate some written material two weeks prior to the date of the workshop.  This could be a full paper, if available, or shorter draft material (suggested 4000-9000 words).  The workshop itself will be divided into morning and afternoon sessions.  In each session, five young scholars will have the opportunity to present their work briefly and discuss it with fellow participants and our senior Smith scholars (names to be confirmed).

Lunch will be provided at the workshop, and there will also be a complimentary dinner afterwards to which the senior scholars will also be invited.  The workshop is a one-day event, but is intended as a complement to the main IASS conference, offering participants chances to discuss their work in greater detail than is normally possible in conference panels, and enhancing opportunities for networking with peers and senior scholars.

Participants

IMPORTANT:  This is intended as a pre-conference, rather than a standalone, workshop.  Participants will therefore also need to be registered for the main IASS conference.  We are aiming to cover costs for travel to and from the conference (including travel from outside Italy), and accommodation for the night before the workshop, but funding limits mean that we will not be able to provide accommodation for the whole of the conference duration, or cover conference fees.  Participants are therefore advised to seek alternative sources of funding for these costs, where possible.

We will bring 10 young scholars, whose research is related to the theme of the workshop, to participate, present and discuss their work.  The aim is to make this group as diverse as possible and to bring individuals from different parts of the world.  We will provide accommodation for the night before and night of the workshop, at least, and for further nights of the conference, if possible.  We will provide the maximum amount of travel funding possible, and will do our best to cover costs, though we cannot guarantee we will be able to cover costs fully in all cases.

If you are interested in attending the workshop you should:
(i) be a young scholar (masters, PhD, post-doc);
(ii) click the “Apply now” button and fill out the form, including a title and abstract (up to 300 words) for the paper you wish to present, by 15th November (deadline extended).

We will let applicants know the outcome by 31^st November.