Statement from UEL occupation posted by Richard Seymour

Friends

On the afternoon of Wednesday December 8th 2010 an Emergency General Assembly will take place at the University of East London (details below)

On the same day an important seminar on the politics of 'pain' in an age of austerity will be held at the same site (details below)

The following morning, a public seminar and discussion on the crisis in higher education and the politics and practicalities of protest will be held at 10:00, allowing time for all participants to convene with the occupation afterwards and to travel to central London to join the major demonstration at 1:00pm (details below)

for any further information contact J.Gilbert@uel.ac.uk
------------------------------------------------------------------

Occupying Students at the University of East London have called an Emergency General Assembly at 13:00 in the main lecture theatre (next to the library - Docklands Campus, Cyprus DLR) on Wednesday December 8th to address the crisis facing the university, as management threatens to roll out redundancies without consulting staff unions and continues to deny students democratic representation, as the voided elections to the students' union, declared illegitimate last Spring, have STILL not been re-run. UEL is in many ways a test case for the next wave of anti-democratic neoliberal managerialism across the public sector - so this issue affects all of us. All staff and students are asked to attend the meeting; sympathetic observers are unlikely to be turned away.

------------------------------------------------------------------
UEL Centre for Cultural Studies Research
presents
A Public Symposium: The Politics of Pain

8 December 2010, 15:00 to 17:00

'Pain' has become central to the discourse of the coalition government as it embarks on its cuts programme. The cuts are inevitable, we are told, and the pain must be shared in the interests of fairness. But is the pain necessary, should it be shared, is it really being shared, how will the pain affect the social fabric, and what are the psychosocial consequences of the crisis? This is the second seminar in the Centre for Cultural Studies Research’s three-part “Debt, Pain, Work” series that interrogates the discourses and policies of the coalition government. (NB: A full audio recording of our last seminar, 'The Politics of Debt', is now available at http://culturalstudiesresearch.org/)

Speakers:
Kate Pickett, Professor of Epidemiology at the University of York, co-author of The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better
Mike Rustin, Professor of Sociology in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at UEL and author of The Good Society and the Inner World
Jeremy Gilbert Reader in Cultural Studies in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at UEL and author of Anti-Capitalism and Culture: Radical Theory and Popular Politics

For more Information and for a full audio recording of the last event in this series see http://culturalstudiesresearch.org/

UEL Docklands Campus
Transport: Cyprus DLR station is located right next to the campus (just follow signs out of the station)

Room EB.G.14
(Ground Floor, East Building, which is to the left on entering the main square from Cyprus station)

All Welcome - no booking required

AS SOON AS THIS SYMPOSIUM HAS FINISHED THE ORGANISERS WILL INVITE ALL PARTICIPANTS TO VISIT THE UEL OCCUPATION FOR FURTHER DISCUSSION OF THE ISSUES FACING THOSE IN STRUGGLE AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT'S CURRENT WAVE OF CUTS, AT UEL AND FURTHER AFIELD
------------------------------------------------------------------

Thursday December 9th 2010

10:00-11:00 (possibly carrying on a bit longer...)

The Crisis in the Universities and the Politics of Protest

Debra Benita Shaw (UEL), Jeremy Gilbert (UEL), Stephen Maddison (UEL) will lead an open seminar on the issues, and offer some practical guidelines on safe and legal protest
Room EB.3.19 (Third floor, main building, turn left on entering main square from Cyprus DLR)

Suggested Readings:

Raymond Williams
'Why Do I Demonstrate?'
http://www.culturalstudies.org.uk/WhydoIdemonstrate.PDF

Jeremy Gilbert
'Elitism, Philistinism and Populism: the sorry tale of British Higher Education Policy'
http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/jeremy-gilbert/elitism-philistinism-and-populism-sorry-tale-of-british-higher-education-p

Andrew Robinson and Simon Tormey
'New Labour’s neoliberal Gleichschaltung: the case of higher education'
http://www.commoner.org.uk/07robinson&tormey.pdf


Paul Bowman
'The ConDemned'

http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/blog_comments/the_ConDemned/

-----------------------------------------------------
Advice for protestors:

Comprehensive 'bust card' - info to carry with you in case of unwelcome police attention - here:
https://london.indymedia.org/system/file_upload/2010/11/21/303/bust_card.pdf
Useful anti-'kettling' tactics discussed here:
http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/3208

How not to get kettled...:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0jKvgS7olo

Labels: austerity, cuts, education, education maintenance allowance, occupation, protests, public sector workers, students, tories, trade unions, uel