Making Social Movements:

The British Marxist Historians and the Study of
Social Movements

June 26-28, 2002, Edge Hill College of Higher Education, England

Conference Sponsors

The Social Movements Research Group, Edge Hill College of Higher Education,
The London Socialist Historians Group, The Socialist History Society,
Historical Materialism

Confirmed Plenary Speakers

Dorothy Thompson

Brian Manning

Bryan D Palmer

Ellen WoodConfirmed Speakers



Trevor Bark

Crime Becomes Custom Ð Custom Becomes Crime



David Camfield, York University, Toronto

ÓThompsonianÓ Theory, the Working Class and Modern Social Movements



Laurence Cox, Department of Sociology, National University of Ireland,

Maynooth Thinking Òthe social movementÓ



Neil Davidson

Regional Peasant Revolt and Religious Radicalism during the Scottish
Bourgeois Revolution



James Green, Professor of History and Labor Studies, University of
Massachusetts

The Power of the Past in Building Social Movements



Lesley Hardy

History,Politics and Tradition



James Holstun, SUNY, Buffalo

Brian Manning and the Dialectics of Revolt



Philip Hunter

Class, Agency and Struggle in British Marxist Historiography: Some Lessons
for the study of Social Movements



Alan Johnson, Edge Hill College, England

Leadership and Class Formation: Christopher Hill and the English Revolution



Geoff Kennedy, York University, Toronto

Digger Radicalism and Agrarian Capitalism



Wade Matthews, University of Strathclyde

The Poverty of Strategy: Socialism and the British Marxists
>

Professor John Mcilroy and Professor Alan Campbell, University of Manchester

The Communist Party Historians Group and Problems in Communist Party
Historiography



Viv Mackay, University of Southampton

Labour Disputes as Contentious Politics:Refiguring the 1928 Garment Workers
Strike at the London ÒRegoÓ Factory



Antonio Negro, State University of Campinas, Brazil

A Limited Number of Ideas for an Unlimited Social History. Notes on
Brazilian Trends



Alf Nilsen, University of Bergen, Norway

Marxist and Postmodern Perspectives on Social Movements



Mi Park, London School of Economics

Ideology and Lived Experience: A case study of Revolutionary Movements in
South Korea,1980-1995Õ



Dave Renton, TUC Education

English Experiences: The problem of Nationalism in the Work of the British
Marxist Historians

Anneke Ribberink, History Dept, Free University, Amsterdam

Leading Ladies and Cause Minders: The Silent Generation and the Second
Feminist Movements



Jess Rigelhaupt, University of Michigan

ÓThe Paradox of a Jim Crow NavyÓ: The Post Chicago Mutiny, The Communist
Party, and the California Civil Rights Movement



Richard Romain and Edur Valasco, Associate Professor, University of Toronto
and Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana

Continental Integration,Neoliberalism and the Mexican Working Class

Sean Scalmer, Macquarie University, Australia

The Problem of Decline:Demobilisation and Fracturing of Working Class
Politics

Hira Singh, Department of Sociology, York University

Anti-Fuedal, Anti-Colonial Protests in India: Structure, Tradition, Ideology

Roger Spalding, Edge Hill College of Higher Education

EP Thompson and the Popular Front

Stephen Woodhams, Visiting Fellow, Birkbeck College

New wine in old bottles:the transformation of a generation

Conference Themes

How might the extraordinary body of historical writing produced by the
ÔBritish Marxist historiansÕ - Edward Thompson, Christopher Hill, Rodney
Hilton, Eric Hobsbawm, Victor Kiernan, DonaTorr, John Saville, Dorothy
Thompson, George RudŽ and others - enable scholars and activists to better
understand the making of social movements? This is a timely moment to
examine their legacy. Many social movement scholars are pushing beyond the
static ÔmodelsÕ drawn from rational-choice theory and the crude and
reductive ÔnewmovementÕ/Õold movementÕ dichotomies developed by European
social theory. What can social movement scholars and activists learn from a
critical engagement with the historiography of movement and protest in the
writings of the British Marxist historians? And from the theoretical and
conceptual innovations developed through their history writing? What might
be learnt from the sensibility and style of the British Marxist historians,
from their ÔcommittedÕ social and political relation to their subject, to
their writing of history Ôfrom the bottom upÕ? And what can social movement
studies - now in an exciting period of sustained growth, connected to the
rebirth of popular protest, and a locus for fruitful academic-activist
dialogue - bring to this exchange?

We invite proposals for papers, which explore any aspect of the legacy of
the British Marxist historians for the study of popular protest and social
movements. Themes include:

Theorising social movements

Class, gender, ÔraceÕ and social movement

The cultural and moral mediation of protest and movement,

Agency and the individual-in-the-movement,

Ideology, discourse and the study of social movements

ÔThe PeopleÕ and protest

Protest as ethic

The leadership of social movements

Revolutions and social movements

The Ôprimitive rebelÕ

Using sources to study social movements

Literature and the study of protest

Marxism and the British Marxist Historians



Offers of Papers



FINAL DEADLINE FOR 400 WORD PROPOSALS: MARCH 1 2002

Email offers of papers to the conference organiser johnsona@edgehill.ac.uk
or write to Alan Johnson, Social Movements Research Group, Edge Hill College
of Higher Education, St Helens Road, Ormskirk, Lancashire, L394QP. Offers of
papers should not be more than 400 words long and should be submitted by 1
March 2002. Full papers, maximum length 8,000 words, must be submitted by 6
May 2002 to enable their advance distribution to conference participants.
The conference organiser will actively pursue publication of a selection of
conference papers.



Conference Arrangements

Edge Hill College of Higher Education is situated just outside the market
town of Ormskirk, 30 miles from Liverpool and Manchester, and twenty minutes
from the seaside resort of Southport. From Manchester Airport, a train can
be taken to Ormskirk Station, changing at Preston Station.

The cost of the full conference package will be £130 (en suite room) or £100
(standard room), which will include accommodation, conference fees,
conference papers, refreshments, lunches, evening meals. Further details of
costs are listed on the attached downloadable booking form. Please return
the booking form and payment to Marcy McNally,Secretary to the Social
Movements Research Group, Centre for the Study of the Social Sciences, Edge
Hill College of Higher Education, St Helens Road, Ormskirk, Lancashire,
England L39 4QP.

On behalf of the Conference Organising Committee



Matthew Beaumont

Pembroke College, Oxford University and Historical Materialism Journal



Keith Flett

London Socialist Historians Group

Alan Johnson

Edge Hill College of Higher Education Social Movements Research Group and
Historical Materialism Journal (conference organiser)

Stephen Woodhams

Socialist History Society

BOOKING FORM

Making Social Movements:

The British Marxist Historians and the study of social movements

A Conference at Edge Hill College of Higher Education, June 26-28, 2002

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