This international conference seeks to shed light on the innovations introduced by Enlightenmentdebates on poverty that paved the way for the later emergence of the Social Question. It solicitspresentations on reform projects developed – and occasionally applied – in the long eighteenthcentury that were aimed to address poverty as the key social issue of the age, breaking withtraditional approaches based on Christian theology and morals. Of special interest will thus beEnlightenment reform projects that sought to find a solution to the social consequences ofcontemporary economic dynamics and questioned existing institutions and theoretical frameworksof poor relief. Participants will be encouraged to reflect on the novelty of these eighteenth-centuryschemes, their relation to both older systems, modern notions, and novel disciplines (includingnatural law and political economy), and their potential impact on and legacy in early nineteenthcenturyreflections on pauperism and the development of the Social Question.