The Luddites, without Condescension
Event Date: 6 May 2011 
Room B34 10:00 – 18:00
Birkbeck, University of London
Malet Street, Bloomsbury
London WC1E 7HX
The Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities presents:
The Luddites, without Condescension
A Conference on the 200th Anniversary
of the Frame-breakers’ Uprising
In the Spring of 2011 Birkbeck will host a one-day conference to mark the 200th anniversary of the uprising of the handloom weavers in the dawn of the industrial revolution under the command of the mythic General Ludd. Even though the movement was sparked by skilled artisans, “luddite” has ever since been a byword for technophobes facing backwards and mindless rejection of progress. The conference will gather historians of luddism and others interested in what in 1800 was called “the machinery question”, to consider not only the historical luddites, urban and rural, but also contemporary movements of direct resistance, north and south, to capitalist modernization – for example, anti-nuclear movements, opposition to agricultural transgenics, resistance to big dams. The concluding session will address the issue of modernity itself, its model of temporality and the assumption that history is future-directed.
Introduction by Iain Boal.
Session 1: Ludd, Rebecca and History from Below
Peter Linebaugh (Toledo and Midnight Notes) – The Luddites and the Atlantic commons
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Discussion with audience, primed and moderated by Anna Davin (History Workshop)
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Session 2: Modernization and Contemporary Movements of Resistance
Dave King (Corporatewatch) – The Luddites200 Project and the politics of technology today
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Audience questions.
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Iain Boal (Birkbeck) - To put your bodies upon the gears: Some reflections on machines, sabotage and direct action
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Discussion with activists and audience.
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Session 3: Rebels Facing Backwards and the Dream of Modernity
T.J. Clark (Retort) – A Left with no Future
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Esther Leslie (Birkbeck) - Response
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Closing general discussion.
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Prof. Peter Linebaugh examines the current state of liberty and shows how longstanding restraints against tyranny—and the rights of habeas corpus, trial by jury, and due process of law, and the prohibition of torture—are being abridged. In providing a sweeping history of Magna Carta, the source of these protections since 1215, he demonstrates how these ancient rights are repeatedly laid aside when the greed of privatization, the lust for power, and the ambition of empire seize a state. Peter Linebaugh draws on primary sources to construct a wholly original history of the Great Charter and its scarcely-known companion, the Charter of the Forest, which was created at the same time to protect the subsistence rights of the poor.
