The registration for IASS 2024 in Tokyo is now open!
The conference will be March 11-13, 2024 at Waseda University.
You can submit your abstract and register here: https://smithsociety.org/2024-international-adam-smith-society-conference/
The deadline for submission is November 1, 2023
For information contact smithconference@gmail.com
The International Adam Smith Society conference is an annual gathering of Smith scholars from around the world. The conference provides the opportunity to meet new and old friends, discuss ideas, and develop research for publication.
If you are not already a member, you can become one here.
There should be some limited financial support for early career scholars and scholars in need.
If you wish to support this program and donate to our bursary fund, you can do it here.
In addition, the Young Scholars Initiative is sponsoring a pre-conference workshop on March 10th. The workshop offers 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. The selected participants will receive travel stipends to attend the Workshop and Conference. Click here for more information.
The 2024 conference will be held March 11-13, 2024 at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan.
Japan holds a prominent place in Smithian scholarship. Part of Smith’s library is now located at the University of Tokyo. On March 14, we have planned a visit to the Smith Library.
Please join us!
Submit your abstract, session or authors meet critics proposal by clicking here
Submission Deadline: NOVEMBER 1, 2023
Decisions Announced: Early November
Registration Opens: Early October
Registration Closes: Early February
Conference Dates: March 11-13, 2024,
Visit to Smith Library at the University of Tokyo: March 14
Conference Fees
All prices are in US Dollars
Conference Registration Fee: $25
Opening Reception: approximately $80
Closing Banquet: approximately $110
Conference Hotel: Rihga Hotel, Tokyo. The hotel is located across the street from the University. The special discounted rate for the conference is approximately $200/night (booking procedure to follow)
Other hotels are in the area of Takadanobaba (approximately $100/night) and about a 10 minute bus or subway ride to the University. For any questions please contact us at
See you in Tokyo!
As you know, the International Adam Smith Society is engaging more early career scholars and scholars from different geographical areas and backgrounds. We are trying to offer as much financial support as possible.
To continue our activities, we need your help.
We have depleted our bursary fund, and we hope you will contribute to replenish it. Our upcoming conferences are in Tokyo 2024, Lecce 2025, and Glasgow 2026. It would be wonderful for us to be able to support wider participation in these events.
Please consider donating to the bursary fund and support many scholars!
IASS is not for profit, and all donations are tax deductible.
Thank you
Maria Pia Paganelli
President, IASS
The deadline for the Smith, Ferguson, and Witherspoon Conference is rapidly approaching! The deadline is June 30, 2023.
You may register using this link.
The deadline for registering for ‘Smith, Ferguson, and Witherspoon at 300’ is 9 June. After that date, there will be no guarantee that rooms in University accommodation will be available to participants. So please register as soon as possible, if you haven’t already.
Here is a link to the registration site: https://www.eventsforce.net/standrews/184/register
You may also find the current program below:
On the occasion of Adam Smith’s Tercentenary celebrations, the Marie Curie Project ‘Rethinking Exchange’ would like to solicit papers for a session titled ‘Smith and the Nature of Commerce’ and to be organized jointly with the International Adam Smith Society (IASS) during the upcoming 2023 AISPE (Associazione Italiana per la Storia del Pensiero Economico) and SISE (Società Italiana degli Storici Economici) conference.
Before the 19th century, commerce was part of a vast debate on human nature, the foundations of sociability and society, which involved thinkers from nascent disciplines like anthropology, political science, political economy and natural history, later considered separately. Back then, commerce was not exclusively understood as an economic concept, but also as a moral and political one. It meant not only the economic exchange of goods but was rather conceived as a particular form of social interaction based on moral sentiments, as a principle of social regulation that could possibly serve as an alternative to war and political subordination. On which attributes of human nature was commerce grounded? What kind of exchange and sociability did it concern? Under which moral, social or political conditions could it become a peaceful, free and fair way of social interaction? And under which conditions could it turn into a means of alienation, social domination and corruption? These were some of the questions that thinkers from the 18th century were grappling with.
Adam Smith made an important contribution to these debates through his two main works: the Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations. In these books, Smith developed his own response to challenges put forward by thinkers like Hobbes, Pufendorf, Mandeville, Hume and Rousseau regarding the nature of commerce and human sociability. But what is the meaning of his contribution? Although scholars now amply recognize there was no contradiction between his economic and moral thought, there is no consensus regarding his stance towards commerce. In Smith’s view, was commerce an expression of the moral sentiments and a means of fulfilling one’s moral needs, or did it beget inequality, corruption and social division? Was it after all an actual solution for the problem of social conflict and violence, or did it instead pose serious moral and political problems to modern societies? We can also ask ourselves: how Smith’s questions and answers are still relevant today?
The session is open to contributions by scholars and PhD students that intend to consider Smith’s thought on these and related issues in the historical and theoretical depth of the multidisciplinary debates in which he participated. It is also open to contributions that discuss Smith’s current relevance for the branches of economics, philosophy, social and political sciences that in various ways reintroduce the themes of those debates in contemporary times.
Papers may focus on, but are not limited to, the following:
Please reply with an abstract of up to 200 words to Ivan Sternick (ivanprates@cedeplar.ufmg.br) by Wednesday 31 May.
Ivan Sternick and Michele Bee
Please see the post below on an upcoming One Day Workshop during the Adam Smith Tercentenary.
The YSI History of Economic Thought working group is organizing a one-day workshop on 7th June as part of the 2023 Adam Smith tercentenary events at the University of Glasgow, UK. This is an exciting opportunity for ten young scholars working on Smith to participate in the prestigious and historic tercentenary events planned at Glasgow and discuss their work with peers and senior Smith scholars.
The theme of the workshop will be “Adam Smith at 300”. This theme has been left deliberately open-ended to allow space for the broadest range of approaches to Smith’s work, including, for example, those working on the contemporary relevance of his ideas, as well as those doing more historicist work.
If you are interested in attending the workshop, you should:
(i) be a young scholar (Master, PhD, Post-Doc);
(ii) complete this form by 3rd May.
Invited participants will receive travel stipends and enjoy free lodging during the workshop and Smith tercentenary week. We will let applicants know the outcome by 8th May.
For more information about the Workshop ysi.ineteconomics.org/project
For other Tercentenary Week events, see www.gla.ac.uk/explore/adamsmith300/events
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Best regards,
Ana Paula Londe Silva (she/her)
Research Associate | School of Social and Political Sciences | University of Glasgow
PhD candidate | History of Economics | Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
This post contains information about registration for “Smith, Ferguson, and Witherspoon at 300”, taking place at the University of St Andrews, 18-21 July 2023.
You can register using this link: – https://www.eventsforce.net/standrews/184/register
Graduate students and scholars from the Global South are offered a 50% discount on the cost of registration. If you wish to take advantage of this discount, please register by 15 May at the latest.
Basic registration includes lunches during the conference and an opening reception on 18 July. You can also register for the conference banquet on 21 July, which will include a ceilidh (traditional Scottish dancing), and for a coach trip to Kirkcaldy and the Fife fishing village of Anstruther on the afternoon of 20 July.
You will also have the option of booking accommodation owned by the University of St. Andrews. There are other possibilities, including local hotels and bed and breakfasts. Accommodation can be in short supply in St. Andrews in the summer, so it’s advisable to make arrangements as soon as possible.
You are welcome to bring guests to the banquet (and on the trip), but note that we’re obliged to charge an extra 20% VAT on the cost.
If you have problems with registration, please write to aceteam@st-andrews.ac.uk in the first instance.
The conference team
In conjunction with the Eighteenth-Century Scottish Studies Society, the Institute for the Study of Scottish Philosophy, and the International Adam Smith Society:
The Institute of Intellectual History at the University of St Andrews will host a conference to celebrate the 300th birthdays of Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, and John Witherspoon, and also the 250th anniversary of Johnson and Boswell’s tour of the Highlands and Western Isles.
18-21 July 2023, St Andrews, Scotland
We welcome paper abstracts (400 words max) and session proposals, both on the themes of the conference, and on eighteenth-century Scottish intellectual life more generally.
We also welcome proposals for author meets critics sessions on recent or forthcoming books.
A limited amount of funding will be available for PhD students.
DEADLINE FEBRUARY 25, 2023
In celebration of Adam Smith’s 300th birthday The University of Glasgow, Smith’s academic home, will be hosting a series of events the week of the 5th June 2023. In co-ordination with colleagues in Smith’s home town of Kirkcaldy and his final Edinburgh home Panmure House, we’re planning a programme of events to mark the tercentenary.
https://www.gla.ac.uk/explore/adamsmith300/events/listing/index.html/event/12700
Among the academic events are daylong workshops for academics (early career researchers and PhD students most welcome). These will take place in Glasgow on the 8th of June. The workshops will invite leading academics to reflect, discuss, and debate the relevance of Adam Smith’s works. https://www.gla.ac.uk/news/headline_900135_en.html
Those interested in participating are invited to submit proposed papers or panel topics. Full papers are not required for participation. Please make expressions of interest in participation by February 1, 2023 to Thomas.Scotto@glasgow.ac.uk
More details on events taking place throughout 2023 can be found at
International Adam Smith Society 
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