The conference Enlightenment Libraries: Circulation and Appropriation of Economic Ideas, will take place at ICS-ULisboa on 8 & 9 June, 2027.

Abstract:

The emergence and circulation of new economic ideas as a key component of Enlightenment thought have become a vibrant field of historiographical research. During this period, political economy itself emerged as an increasingly autonomous field of knowledge. Yet this historiography has rarely engaged with parallel developments in the history of the book and libraries, which have demonstrated the crucial role of libraries in shaping intellectual communities and in the dissemination, classification, and appropriation of knowledge during the Enlightenment.

This conference aims to bridge that gap, inviting scholars to explore the intersections between Enlightened libraries and the circulation and appropriation of changing economic ideas. We are especially interested in discussing how libraries and other forms of book and knowledge circulation contributed to the emergence, transmission, transformation, and reception of economic thought from the early 18th century through the nineteenth century.

How did political economists, philosophers, administrators, merchants and other economic agents and other readers use libraries? What can library catalogues, acquisition records, marginalia, correspondence, reading lists, and private collections tell us about the formation of economic knowledge in times of change? How did the organization of libraries influence the ways in which economic texts were classified and understood? And how did the circulation of economic works across institutional, national, linguistic, and intellectual boundaries contribute to the development and appropriation of economic ideas? The conference welcomes contributions that approach these questions from intellectual, cultural, social, institutional, bibliographical, or material perspectives.

We encourage contributions that use library collections or other material sources to reconsider the development of economic ideas. Comparative, imperial and transnational perspectives are also especially welcome.

Keynote Speaker: Sophus A. Reinert, Harvard Business School & History Department, Harvard University

Format: In-person