Thursday 29 September 2011

Marxism in Culture seminars

MARXISM IN CULTURE

PROGRAMME FOR AUTUMN TERM 2011

Friday 14 October
Financialisation, Monetisation, Privatisation: Creating the New Market
in Higher Education
Andrew McGettigan (Central Saint Martins)
Friday 28 October
Self-emancipation, activity theory, and political deskilling /
reskilling: Some thoughts on organising into a big fish
Alex Levant (Wilfred Laurier University)
Friday 25 November
A Socialist Realist Sander: Comparative Portraiture as a Marxist Model
in the German Democratic Republic
Sarah James (University College London)

Friday 09 December
Cultures of Marxism 1: Publishing and the Left
Contributors to be confirmed

All seminars start at 5.30pm, and are held in the Court Room (unless
otherwise indicated) at the Institute of Historical Research in Senate
House, Malet St, London. The seminar closes at 7.30pm and retires to
the bar.

Organisers: Matthew Beaumont, Dave Beech, Alan Bradshaw, Warren
Carter, Gail Day, Steve Edwards, Larne Abse Gogarty, Owen Hatherley,
Esther Leslie, David Mabb, Antigoni Memou,Chrysi Papaioannou, Nina
Power, Dominic Rahtz, Pete Smith, Peter Thomas & Alberto Toscano.

For further information, contact Warren Carter, at: w.carter@ucl.ac.uk
or Esther Leslie at: e.leslie@bbk.ac.uk

Wednesday 28 September 2011

The David Starkey rap

Sorry, David Starkey's racism on Newsnight last month with respect to the riots is a bit old news - and historians condemned it at the time, but for those who missed these the first time around the best response has probably been the David Starkey rap and in particular this one Even Starker...

Claudia Jones: Beyond Containment book launch

Dr Carole Boyce Davies, author of Left of Karl Marx, will read and discuss her latest tome on the iconic black political, cultural and social activist, Claudia Jones @ Centerprise. Followed by Q & A.
Date: Thursday, 29th September 2011Time: 6.30-9.30pmAdmission: £5(redeemable with the purchase of the book)
Centerprise Trust Ltd
136-138 Kingsland High Street
London E8 2NS 020 7254 9632
http://www.centerprisetrust.org.uk

Friday 23 September 2011

1911 National Railway Strike anniversary meeting in Manchester

A Public meeting exploring the reasons behind the first national rail strike and to discuss the relevance to today’s rail unions...
Great Unrest
100 Years Since the First National Railway Strike
Fighting Unions 1911 and Today

Saturday November 12 2011
16.00-19.30
Peoples History Museum, Left Bank,
Spinningfields, Manchester, M3 3ER
Tel / Fax 0161 838 9190
Public Meeting - panel discussion followed by debate

Britain’s first national rail strike in 1911 was part of ‘The Great Unrest’ a huge upsurge of worker militancy between 1910-14, which created the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR), the first industrial union in February 1913 and the ‘Triple Alliance’ of miners, dockers and railworkers. On “Bloody Sunday” 13 August 1911 a mass strike meeting at Liverpool’s Lime Street station was attacked by police. The Liverpool strike committee declared a general strike from midnight. The following day four rail unions (ASRS, GRWU, UPSS and ASLEF) threatened anational rail strike unless rail companies agreed to negotiations. The government offered rail bosses “every available soldier in the country” to resist the ultimatum and on 17 August a national rail strike was declared in the famous ‘liberty telegram’, which proclaimed: “Your liberty is at stake. All railwaymen must strike at once. The loyalty of each means liberty for all.” The strike demonstrated the power of workers acting in solidarity across shipping, docks, railways and road transport to reject craft sectarianism, which rail companies used to rule transport workers. The 1911 strike pushed ASRS, GRWU and UPSS railway unions to merge to create the National Union of Railwaymen, one of the largest and most important trade unions in 20th century British labour history.

SPEAKERS:
David Howell- Professor of Politics, University of York and author Respectable Radicals- Studies in the Politics of Railway Trade Unionism (1999)
Sam Davies - Professor of History, Liverpool John Moores University and author of History in the Making: The Liverpool Docks Dispute 1995–96 (1996)
Alex Gordon - RMT President and author of ‘Charles Watkins: The Syndicalist Railwayman’ (2010)
Bob Crow - founder and Chair of the United Campaign to Repeal the Anti-Trade Union Laws and RMT General Secretary

Sunday 18 September 2011

The Slave-owners of Bloomsbury Exhibition

The Legacies of British Slave-ownership project in the UCL Department of History cordially invites you to a reception launching “The Slave-owners of Bloomsbury”, an exhibition to mark this year’s Black History Month.

The ESRC-funded LBS project has been examining the significance of slave-ownership to the formation of modern Britain. Through words and images, this exhibition will trace the contentious lives and legacies of the many slave-owners, both men and women, who lived close to the newly-founded UCL. The Slave-owners of Bloomsbury exhibition is kindly supported by the UCL Public Engagement under the Beacons for Public Engagement Programme, funded by HEFCE, the UK Research Councils and the Wellcome Trust.

The launch reception will take place in the South Cloisters from 6pm on Monday 10th October 2011, and will include an introduction to the exhibition by the LBS team.

For more information about the project, please visit our website at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs.

We very much hope you are able to attend. Please do let us know if you can make it.

Yours sincerely,
Prof Catherine Hall (Principal Investigator, Legacies of British Slave-ownership)
Keith McClelland (Research Associate)
Dr Nick Draper (Research Associate)


Edited to add:
Institute of Commonwealth Studies, in conjunction with the Black & Asian Studies Association present tbe 'Black and Asian Britain seminars'

Senate House, University of London, Russell Square, London WC1 6 to 7.30 pm, Everyone is welcome. You do not have to pre-book/register. (Contact: Marika.Sherwood@sas.ac.uk). Next seminar:

27 September (G34 - Gordon Room)
Kate Donnington 'Feeding the ghosts': George Hibbert, the West India Docks and the memory of British Slave Ownership.'
This paper will explore the ways in which George Hibbert has been represented in the West India Dock area. It will consider the relationship between the representation and memory of slave ownership in Britain.

Thursday 15 September 2011

Cable Street Anniversary T-shirt

Just out in time to mark the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street from the people at Philosophy Football:
There are a number of anniversary events being organised locally - see for example here.

Wednesday 7 September 2011

CLR James legacy celebration

CLR James legacy celebration
Sunday, October 30, 2011 from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM (GMT)
London, United Kingdom
Open the Gate
33 - 35 Stoke Newington Road
N16 8BJ London
United Kingdom

IT HAS BEEN OVER 20 years sine C.L.R. James’ (1901-1989) passing yet he remains one of the twentieth century’s most remarkable thinkers. We will be celebrating his legacy and unveiling our teaching pack.

A writer, historian and social activist, his work has had an impact on every continent in the world. He was also a sports writer and cultural critic; in fact the sheer diversity of his accomplishments and richness of his writing mean that there will always be much to inspire about the extraordinary life and work of this outstanding Caribbean intellectual.

After successfully convincing Hackney Council to retain the name CLR James for the rebuilt library in Dalston,Hackney Unites has gone on to launch the CLR James Legacy Project (supported by the Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust).

As part of our contribution to celebrating Black History Month, Hackney Unites launches The C.L.R. James legacy project

The project includes:
● an on-line resource that attempts to pull together writings by and about C.L.R. to illustrate the sheer breadth of his work.

We are constantly seeking writers and others to contribute to this web-site. Please visit www.clrjameslegacyproject.org.uk for further details.


● We also want to ensure that our young people, the next generation are made aware of what C.L.R James contributed to society and his relevance to our lives today. To this end we have develop a teaching resource that can be used in schools, youth-clubs and other settings.

Tuesday 6 September 2011

George Orwell, the fight against fascism in Barnsley and the Spanish Civil War

George Orwell, the fight against fascism in Barnsley and the Spanish Civil War

With John Newsinger and Michael Clapham, ex-Labour MP. In March 1936 George Orwell met and debated with Communist Tommy Degnan—one of those attempting to disrupt a British Union of Fascists public meeting. Both men later travelled to Spain to fight fascism.
Sat 8 Oct, 1pm
Cooper Art Gallery, Church St, S70 3AH
Organised by Barnsley College UCU

HM Book Series

The Historical Materialism Book Series is looking for book proposals
of the following type:

- scholarly monographs on Marx and Marxism, or applications of Marxist
methods to particular fields and issues
- translations of works by non-anglophone Marxist writers
- republications of Marxist classics with a new editorial apparatus
- thematically coherent anthologies of Marxist texts

Please send all proposals, with a full account of the proposed
structure and argument of the proposed volume (including estimated
total word length and delivery date), as well as its position in
relation to the existing scholarship to: historicalmaterialism@soas.ac.uk

PhD dissertations are welcome as long as the author is prepared to
engage in rewriting to transform it into book form.

All HM books are published in hardback form by Brill and in paperback format by
Haymarket Books

Sunday 4 September 2011

LSHG Autumn seminars

London Socialist Historians Group: Autumn Seminars 2011

Wednesday October 12th 7pm Resistance & Empire. Robin Blackburn and Richard Gott speak on their new books. A joint meeting with the socialist history society at the Library Bishopsgate Institute 230 Bishopsgate EC2

Monday October 17th 5.30pm Owen Jones 'Class politics: how the working class has changed'

Monday October 31st 5.30pm Marika Sherwood 'Malcolm X- visits abroad April 1964- February 1965'

Monday November 14th 5.30pm John Charlton 'The 1815 seaman’s strike on the north-east coast of England'

Except October 12th all in the Bloomsbury Room [room 35] South Block Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, Malet St WC1


Thursday 1 September 2011

Remembering Sidney Bunting

Remembering Sidney Bunting

15 October 2011, 2:00 – 4:30 pm

Elizabeth Fry Suite
Friends House
173 Euston Road
London NW1 2BJ

The life of English-born Sidney Bunting (1873-1936) illustrates the complex social networks and values carried across the world in the name of the British Empire. The lawyer son of renowned Wesleyan social activists, Bunting was radicalized in South Africa. He was a founding member of the Communist Party of South Africa and a campaigner for black emancipation.

Allison Drew (author of Between Empire and Revolution: A Life of Sidney Bunting, 1873-1936) on

‘The complexities of Sidney Bunting’s life and work’

Programme

2:00 – 2:15 Arrival, coffee and informal conversation
2:15 – 2:20 Welcome by Edward Bunting
2:20 – 3:05 Allison Drew, ‘The complexities of Sidney Bunting’s life & work’
3:05 – 3:20 Coffee, tea and cakes
3:20 – 4:00 Questions and discussion
4:00 – 4:15 Changes in the family tree & closing by a family member
4:30 – 5:30 Drinks at the Norfolk Arms, 28 Leigh Street WC1H 9EP


RSVP: Edward Bunting at edward.bunting@btinternet.com; phone 07748 942 768