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A Social Question before the Social Question. Addressing Poverty in Enlightenment Europe
A Social Question before the Social Question. Addressing Poverty in Enlightenment Europe
Convenors: Damiano Bardelli (Voltaire Foundation, Oxford) and Matilde Cazzola (DiSCi, Bologna and mpilhlt), with Joanna Innes (Faculty of History Oxford)
THURSDAY, 22 October
13:30 Welcome and Introduction
14:00 Session 1 – Rural Poverty
Joanna Innes (University of Oxford): The Invention of Rural Poverty in England, from 1760
Aris Della Fontana (Università della Svizzera italiana): ‘Combien de pauvres elle sauveroit de l’indigence?’: Small-Scale Agriculture as an Antidote to Rural Poverty in Late Eighteenth-Century France –
15:20 Session 2 – Poverty and Society
Nicholas O’Neill (Arizona State University): Laissez Faire, Laissez Manger: The Economics of Boisguilbert’s Antipoverty
Masano Yamashita (University of Colorado Boulder): Accidental Poverty and Merit
Jacopo Bonasera (Gerda Henkel Stiftung): Population, Luxury and Poverty: The Political Economy of James Steuart
Marek Maj (European University Institute): Making the Poor ‘Useful’ in Late Eighteenth-Century Cracow
FRIDAY, 23 October
9:00 Session 3 – In the Parish
Gabi Wüthrich (Universität Zürich): Poor and Power in the Parish: Bargaining for a Collective Poor Relief Strategy during the 1771 Famine
Rūta Miškinytė (Vilnius University): Between Intentions and Practice: Dealing with Poverty in a Rural Lithuanian Parish
Ellen Gallimore (University of York): Memories of the Medieval Church: Critiques of Parish Poor Relief and Tithe Reform in Early-Nineteenth-Century England
11:00 Session 4 – Between Assistance and Confinement
Julie Marfany (Durham University): ‘Since it is the Spirit of the Present Government to Favour Hospitals and Workhouses’: Conflicts over Poor Relief in Eighteenth-Century Spain
Nathalie Dahn-Singh (Université de Lausanne): Materiality and the Confinement of the Poor in Eighteenth-Century Switzerland
Adrien Schwartz (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne): A Social Problem and a Financial Conundrum: Funding the Care of Foundlings in Eighteenth-Century France
13:30 Session 5 – Reforming Poor Relief
Laurence Fontaine (EHESS): Agreements and Disagreements among Reformist Elites in Addressing Poverty: The 1777 Châlons Competition on ‘How to Eradicate Begging by Making Beggars Useful to the State without Making them Unhappy’
Francesca Ferrando (Università di Verona): Reforming Poor Relief in Eighteenth-Century Genoa: Ideas, Practices and Female Benefaction
Damiano Bardelli (University of Oxford): Work and Education: Reforming Poor Relief in Late Eighteenth-Century Switzerland
Matilde Cazzola (Università di Bologna): Claiming Philanthropy from Below: British Radicalism and the Ragged-Trousered Lovers of Mankind
16:00 Concluding discussion
Supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Max Planck Institute, and the Voltaire Foundation.
Organisiert von
Damiano Bardelli (Voltaire Foundation, University of Oxford) Matilde Cazzola (DiSCi, Università di Bologna, and mpilhlt) with Joanna Innes (Faculty of History, University of Oxford)
CS
07. September 2026
Somerville College
Woodstock Road
Oxford
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