The New Student Rebellions
Edited by Clare Solomon and Tania Palmieri
OUT NOW in the UK; Published September 2011, USA
Book launch and party on:
Thursday 7 April, 2011, 6.30pm – 11pm
At The Venue & Gallery bar @ ULU, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HY
Free entry / All ages / All proceeds to PalestineConnecthttp://www.palestineconnect.org
Come early for drinks reception
Books available for purchase at discounted price of £7
With talks and readings from:
Clare Solomon, (President of ULU)
Jody McIntyre , (Equality Movement)
Dr Nina Power, (Roehampton)
Jo Casserly, (UCL)
Ashok Kumar, (LSE SU)
Kanja Sesay, (NUS Black Students Officer)
James Meadway, (SOAS)
& more tbc
And open mic, poetry, live graffiti wall, music and projections by:
Noel Douglas, (Globalise Resistance), Tyler Perkin, (Havering Sixth Form College), DJ Steaz , Logic MC, (The Peoples Army & We are Dubist), Zain (Words Apart poetry group)
The autumn and winter of 2010 saw an unprecedented wave of student protests across the UK in response to the coalition government's savage cuts in state funding for higher education, cuts which formed the basis for an ideological attack on the nature of education itself. Middle-class students, teenagers from diverse backgrounds and older activists took part in marches, teach-ins and occupations, and also creative new forms: flashmobs, YouTube dance-offs, and the literal literary resistance of colourful book blocs.
The protests spread with wildfire speed, mainly organised through the unprecedented use of social media such as facebook and twitter. Web-savvy, media-literate students developed Sukey, the anti-kettling phone app, publicise their demands through online and traditional media outlets and continue to build ever-denser international networks of solidarity.
The winter of discontent now gives rise to the new spirit of rebellion this spring with a broader, stronger resistance to austerity measures. We have already seen the astonishing events in the Arab world, trade union rallies in Wisconsin on a scale not seen in America since Vietnam protests, direct-action by tax-justice campaigners UK Uncut – and 26 March will see 'March for the Alternative' the largest national anti-cuts demonstration yet. SPRINGTIME is both an inspiring chronicle of and companion to this movement: "the formulation of an experience" of a generation.
Rather than considering them a series of isolated incidents, this new book locates the student protests in the movement spreading across the entire western world: ever since the financial crash of 2008 there has been growing social and political turbulence in the heartlands of capital and beyond. From Athens to Rome, San Francisco to London – and the stunning events in Tunisia and Egypt that captured the world's imagination – students are playing a key role in developing a strong, coherent social and political movement.
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CLARE SOLOMON is President of the University of London Union and has been centrally involved in the student protests.
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ISBN: 978 1 84467 740 5/ $14.95 / £9.99 / Paperback / 296 pages
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For more information or to buy the book visit:
http://www.versobooks.com/books/799-springtime
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