The theme of the 17th Congress of the International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ISECS) is “Enlightenment and (In)equality”.

Throughout the eighteenth century, technological change, the development of trade and the globalization of markets brought about extremely profound changes with an international dimension in social structures of the countries. Yet in the same period, the intellectual developments associated with the Enlightenment caused Reason to collide with inequality, and to confront or at least discuss this, rather than accepting it as a given, natural and inevitable phenomenon. The desire to understand the nature of inequality thus became an aspiration that permeated all the academic disciplines that blossomed from the Enlightenment tree and also made a very deep mark on literary and visual culture and representations of all kinds. The equality proclaimed by the members of the Enlightenment during the eighteenth century could be defined in legal terms as well as in terms of wealth, status, gender, origin, race, caste, education or religious affiliation. It also extended beyond the individual sphere to colonial societies and underdeveloped nations, and Spain, with its vast empire, is a case in point. Fostered by the circulation of ideas and cultural and artistic currents, the desire for equality drove much of the reform of economic, political and legal institutions undertaken by Enlightenment thinkers in their respective countries. But was the concept of equality as coined in the “early” and “late” Enlightenment similar? Was equality used analogously by “radicals” and “moderates”? In a spatial sense, was the equality between rich and poor countries and metropolises and colonies the same? In short, is it appropriate to speak of a single concept of equality in the “long” eighteenth century? The theme of the Zaragoza-2027 Congress thus addresses some of the major overlapping concerns of current research into the Enlightenment, adopting a multidisciplinary and international approach to the various notions of equality that emerged in the eighteenth century. Our theme will likewise encourage the building of bridges between the eighteenth and twenty-first centuries by putting forward a set of interpretative keys to aid our understanding of the daunting challenges facing the modern world.