Talks and Live Events by month: April
May June
1 APRIL Tuesday
6.30, In
Martin Luther King’s Footsteps,
with Eboo Patel
Inspired by
MLK, Eboo Patel founded the
Interfaith Youth Core in Chicago,
bringing together young people
from different religious traditions
to volunteer service to their
communities. (£6, £4 concs)
Venue: British Library
17 APRIL Thursday
7.00, Sheila Rowbotham in
Conversation
The highly influential
historian discusses the Feminist
movement from the 1960s until now
with Sally Alexander, Professor of
Modern History at Goldsmiths. (£6, £4 concs)
Venue: Women’s Library
24 APRIL Thursday
7.00, Illuminations:
a Benefit for Stop the War
Coalition
Music, Songs, Poetry
and Readings with Michael Nyman,
Nigel Kennedy, Martin Bell, Yasmin
Alibhai-Brown, AL Kennedy, Adrian
Mitchell, Haifa Zangana, Ahmed
Mukhtar, Jacqueline Rose and many
others. (£15, £10 concs)
Venue: St James Church
25 APRIL Friday
9.15am (to 5.30), Censorship
as a Creative Force? Central
Europe 1944-1989
A one-day
international conference covering
former Czechoslovakia, Hungary
and Poland. Speakers include
Antonin J. Liehm, Founder of Lettres
Internationales, editor of Listy and
150,000 slov and writer Ivan Klima
and many others. (£10)
Venue: Chadwick Lecture Theatre
28 APRIL Monday
6.30, Remembering 1968: Ivan Klíma with
John Tusa
A seminal voice of Czech and world literature and an icon
of intellectual resistance, Ivan Klíma talks to Czech-born
broadcaster and journalist Sir John Tusa about freedom, honesty,
love and politics. (£6, £4 concs)
Venue: British
Library
3 MAY Saturday
Back to Top
2.00 onwards, Students of the World Ignite!
1968 – 2008
International
conference with Tariq Ali, Chris
Harman and Pierre Rousset, LSE
activists and ’68 films. (Free: register on
07870 689 866)
Venue: LSE Old Theatre
5.00, Lou Rowan
American author and publisher of old-guard experimental
writing, will be talking about his latest work and sharing his
memories and inspirations of ’68. (Free)
Venue: Housmans
Bookshop
5 MAY Monday
7.30, Hothouse at the Roxy: Indymedia:
Image Activists for the World
From the Zapatista uprising, to Reclaim The Streets, Earth
First movement to the Seattle WTO meeting and beyond, the Indymedia
Collective represents the global struggle against Capitalist takeover
and Corporate greed. MC Lee Harris, footsouldja of the underground,
films and reasoning by London Indymedia, DJs and interactive anarchy
by Monday Love Pirates. Free Entry from 7pm. www.indymedia.org.uk
(Free)
Venue: Roxy
Bar and Screen
6 MAY Tuesday
7.30, Hothouse at the Roxy: Here the
Dark Light, Time and Feeling:
Jay Griffiths and the Wild
Under
the pavement, the beach, said the
‘68-ers. Under the oppressive overculture,
a risorgimento of many
times, many ways of knowing, many
ways of feeling. Shamanic thought,
the indigenous spirit, the essential
wildness of the human soul, the
necessity of free land for human
freedom and the poetry of rebellion.
A unique evening with Jay Griffiths,
the visionary writer of ‘Pip Pip’ and
‘Wild’, documentary maker Alan
Ereira, Benny Wenda from West
Papua and radical anthropologist
Hugh Brody (Hugh Brody tbc). (Free)
Venue: Roxy Bar and Screen
9 MAY Friday
7.00, ‘1968 and
All That’ launch party
’68 music,
film, drinks and guests.
Venue: Housmans Bookshop
7.45, Pop Goes Political with Joe
Boyd, Miranda Sawyer and Robin
Denselow
Legendary Record
Producer Joe Boyd and acclaimed
journalist Miranda Sawyer discuss
the political impact of popular music
globally from 1968 until now with
Robin Denselow, author of When the
Music’s Over, a history of politics
and music. (£10)
Venue: Purcell Room and Queen Elizabeth Hall
10 MAY Saturday
10.00am onwards, 1968 and All That / Be Realistic!
Demand the Impossible!
Major
international conference, bookfair
and multi-media event celebrating
the global resistance of 1968 and
its legacy now. Speakers from
France, USA, Russia, Germany,
Eastern Europe and Britain; films,
food, art, debates and much more.
www.1968andallthat.net (Free; register:
1968@andrewburgin.com)
Venue: Conway Hall
11 MAY Sunday
Daytime, ‘'1968 and All That'
after party
Meet up with drifting
guest speakers and watch ’68 films,
playing throughout the day. (Free)
Venue: Housmans Bookshop
13 MAY Tuesday
7.30, Hothouse at the Roxy: The Dream Is Over.
The Revolution Starts Here
Penny Rimbaud: voice/percussion. Louise Elliott: sax/flute.
Lol Coxhill: sax. Jennifer Maidman: guitars. Hugh Metcalfe: guitars/percussion.
Mick Duffield: film/projection. Paul Flack:stonemason. A
multi-media event with Penny Rimbaud. What can we learn from history?
Is there any such thing as an individual event? Is there any such
thing as an individual? Can anything happen in isolation? Where
does context end and the ‘outside’ begin? Within commodity
culture we are either product or outsiders looking for a context
beyond it. Yet, for all that, we are not observers of history,
but its result. The mirror cannot look at itself. Truth is multifaceted,
a two-faced, three-faced clown2. We are divorced in matter alone.
In essence, nothing changes. E=mc2.. Take up your bed and do it
at the speed of now. In contribution, Penny Rimbaud and friends
will create themselves in the image of the moment, that being
the only conceivable God. Let there be light. (Free)
Venue: Roxy
Bar and Screen
14 MAY Wednesday
7.00, Mike Marqusee in conversation with Sukhdev
Sandhu
In If I Am Not for Myself: Journey of an anti-Zionist
Jew (Verso), Mike Marqusee has written an eloquent and deeply
felt memoir exploring his complex relationship with his Jewish
identity, from his upbringing in 1960s Jewish-American suburbia
to his anti-war and pro-Palestinian activism on the British Left.
He will be in conversation with Sukhdev Sandhu, writer and chief
film critic for The Daily Telegraph. (£6)
Venue: London Review Bookshop
7.00, Psychogeography with Merlin
Coverley
An informal Q&A with
Coverley, exploring the psychogeography
across the decades. (Free)
Venue: Housmans Bookshop
Time and venue tbc, Socialist Party speaking
tour of activists
From France and
Britain, then and now, including
Clare Doyle, author of ‘France 1968:
Month of Revolution, Lessons of the
General Strike.’ 14 May: East London
+ 15: NW / 16: SW / 22: SE / 29: NE. (www.socialistparty.org.uk/1968; 07748
534891)
15 MAY Thursday
***Season Commission***
7.30, Book Launch and Readings: ’'68: Stories from
Children of the Revolution
Specially
commissioned for this season,
this unique collection of stories by
writers born in 1968 is published
by Salt (www.saltpublishing.com)
and edited by Nicholas Royle, who
will read tonight alongside other
contributors (Toby Litt, James Flint
etc) (Free)
Venue: Horse Hospital
16 MAY Friday
7.00, War, Resistance and Non-violent
Revolution: from Vietnam to
Iraq, 1968-2008
With Peace News
co-editors Emily Johns and Milan
Rai. (Free)
Venue: Torriano Meeting House
17 MAY Saturday
5.00, Savage
Messiah Collective Cult Zine
Launch
Brining the ’68 spirit of
imagination, confrontation and
psycho-geography into the present. (Free)
Venue: Housmans Bookshop
19 MAY Monday
7.00, Naomi Klein on The Shock
Doctrine: Disaster Capitalism
in Iraq and Beyond
The hugely
influential activist writer Naomi
Klein (No Logo) speaks and takes
questions. A Benefit for Hands Off
Iraqi Oil (www.HandsOffIraqiOil.org) and the Iraqi Federation of Oil
Unions. (£7, £5 concs.; www.waronwant.org/shop)
Venue: Friends’ House
20 MAY Tuesday
7.30, Where Are All
the Radical Thinkers?
Leading
writers and philosophers discuss the
history and future of radical thought
at this centrepiece event. The panel
include Mark Kurlansky, author of
1968: The Year That Rocked the
World and a selection of authors
from publisher Verso’s acclaimed
Radical Thinkers series: Peter Dews,
Ernesto Laclau, Jacqueline Rose
and Göran Therborn. Chaired by the
acclaimed cultural historian Patrick
Wright. (£12)
Venue: Queen Elizabeth Hall
21 MAY Wednesday
6.30, 1968: The Counter-Culture in
Print
Crucial to the success and
spread of the Sixties counterculture,
its values and its new voices, was
the vast underground press it
generated. London was one of the
global centres of pioneering print,
with its publications – Time Out, Oz,
International Times, Black Dwarf and
others – becoming iconic titles in the
Movement. Tony Elliott, founder and
owner of Time Out, which started
in August 1968, will be joined by
other print luminaries of the period
to examine the life and legacy of a
publishing revolution. Chaired by
Nigel Fountain. (£6, £4 concs)
Venue: British Library
7.00, Esther
Leslie on Walter Benjamin
The brilliant Esther Leslie will be
discussing the influence of Walter
Benjamin on the ’68ers. (Free)
Venue: Housmans Bookshop
22 MAY Thursday
7.45, Avant Garde Poetry / Allen Fisher,
Tom Pickard and Iain Sinclair
The
poetry scene of the late 1960s was
a diverse and dynamic territory,
where traditional hierarchies were
rejected with a thriving underground
movement of publishers, venues
and happenings across the UK.
Poets Allen Fisher, Tom Pickard
and Iain Sinclair recapture the
spirit at this special reading. (£10)
Venue: Purcell Room and Queen Elizabeth Hall
28 May – 25 July
Magnum Talks
To
coincide with their print exhibition
(see Exhibitions) Magnum Photos
London will programme a series
of talks, exploring ideas around
recording protest then and now,
and asking “where have all the
revolutionaries gone?”
Venue: Magnum
27 MAY Tuesday
6.00, Discussion - ’'68: The
news, the stories, the photographsTo accompany
the National Theatre's International Herald Tribune (IHT) exhibition,
awardwinning photographers, including Magnum's Ian Berry, describe
their experiences of documenting the world changing events of
1968, from Russia's invasion of Czechoslovakia to the Paris riots,
discussing how ‘'68 shaped the way we illustrate news today.
Chaired by Katherine Knorr, IHT features editor.
Venue: National
Theatre
6.30, The Beatles'’White Album
40 Years On
An evening to rediscover the iconic music and times of
1968's White Album. Participants will include David Quantick,
author of Revolution: the Making of The Beatles' 'White Album'
and Tot Taylor, co-director of Riflemaker Gallery. www.riflemaker.org
(£6, £4 concs)
Venue: British
Library
7.30, Hothouse at the Roxy: The
City as Resistance / The City
Resisted
1968 brought the city
to the forefront of the agitated,
activist’s disaffection. Paris was not
only the backdrop for generational
revolt, somehow what was at
stake was the future of the city’s
future. This evening will explore
the symbolic and real legacies
for thinking about cities today as
frontiers of control, resistance and
re-imagination. Participants include
writer and curator Shumon Basar
(Did Someone Say Participate?).
www.didsomeonesayparticipate.com (Free)
Venue: Roxy Bar and Screen
28 MAY Wednesday
Event cancelled:
the talk by Malcolm McLaren at the British Library
is no longer going ahead.
7.00, Nick Heath
in conversation
Tel for details. (Free)
Venue: Housmans Bookshop
29 MAY Thursday
7.00, Henri Lefebvre and Critique of
Everyday Life with Andrew Hussey
and Patrick Keiller
Lefebvre’s three
volume magnum opus Critique
of Everyday Life (Verso) has been
lauded as a major influence on
the students and workers of Paris
’68. Andrew Hussey, author of The
Game of War: The Life and Death of
Guy Debord and film-maker Patrick
Keiller, (London and Robinson in
Space) will discuss the work and its
legacy. (£6)
Venue: London Review Bookshop
3 JUNE Tuesday
Back to Top
7.30, Dalkey Archive's New Generation:
Readings
The essential Dalkey Archive Press publish avant-garde
classics from the 20th century’s greatest writers. So who's
new? Tonight we present Amanda Michalopoulou's Greek short stories;
wonderful English novelist Deborah Levy's latest work; Alain Arias-Misson
on his Theatre of Incest; film by Stefan and Franciszka Themerson
and the legendary Robert Coover reading from his and others’
edgiest books, including Ann Quin and Wilfrido Nolledo (www.dalkeyarchive.com)
(£3)
Venue: Horse
Hospital
4 JUNE Wednesday
7.30, Hothouse at the Roxy:
PLATFORM
“The radical London collective puts the culture
into a dazzling array of social, ecological and anti-corporate
campaigns. From mapping London's buried rivers to charting the
flow of oil through City boardrooms, theirs is art with a purpose.”
(Time Out). In association with The Body Politic, Platform's pioneering
course at Birkbeck, An evening of film and discussion illuminating
the nature of art and activism over the last 40 years. www.platformlondon.org
(Free)
Venue: Roxy Bar and Screen
10 JUNE Tuesday
***Season Closing Event***
7.30, Hothouse at the Roxy: How
Many Roads?
Some Forgotten Post ’68 Global Uprisings. In the
late 1990s there was an explosive rise of global social movements
whose imaginative anti-capitalism resembled much of ’'68,
but many of its stories are already being consigned to oblivion.
Legendary Social/Cultural activists John Jordan and Sam Chase
will host an evening that celebrates the ’'90s ‘'movements
of movements', from Reclaim the Streets to Seattle, the Zapatistas
to the Climate Camp. The event will end with a mystery drift in
the footsteps of the remarkable June 1999 Carnival Against Capitalism.
www.utopias.eu;
www.londonarc.org
(Free)
Venue: Roxy Bar and Screen
3 – 4 July
Major
international conference on
1968
Venue: Birkbeck College
