Cultural Studies Colloquium: "Breaking Things at Work: The Luddites Are Right About Why You Hate Your Job."
w/ Gavin Mueller, Lecturer in Media Studies, University of Amsterdam.
Thursday, March 18, 2021 4:30 PM to 7:00 PM EDT
Zoom Virtual Event
Join us virtually at the Cultural Studies Colloquium for a talk by Gavin Mueller, Lecturer in Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam, titled "Breaking Things at Work: The Luddites Are Right About Why You Hate Your Job."
Below is a summary of his talk:
"'Luddite' has become a pejorative term for anyone with an antipathy for technology. But could the historical experiences of those machine-breakers have relevance for current debates on the politics of automation, digital technology, and the future of work? Drawing from his latest book Breaking Things At Work, Gavin Mueller argues for Luddism as an approach for anticapitalist politics.
Gavin Mueller holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies from George Mason University. He teaches in the New Media and Digital Culture program at the University of Amsterdam. He is the author of Breaking Things at Work, an innovative rethinking of labor and machines, leaping from textile mills to algorithms, from existentially threatened knife cutters of rural Germany to surveillance evading truckers driving across the continental United States. Mueller argues that the future stability and empowerment of working class movements will depend on subverting these technologies and preventing their spread wherever possible. The task is high, but the seeds of this resistance are already present in the Neo-Luddite efforts of hackers, pirates, and dark web users who are challenging surveillance and control, often through older systems of communication technology. The book is out now on paperback."
