On Direct Action

Charlotte Jones, Megan McInerney

Events marking the 130th anniversary of the Greenwich Outrage, to consider the ways that revolutionary pasts can inspire contemporary praxis

*Please note that booking must be made separately for evening events, using the links provided -- otherwise advance booking is not required and walk-ins are very welcome at any point. ‘Pray… / For Boudin, blown to pieces’, wrote TS Eliot about the anarchist killed in 1894 when a bomb he was carrying detonated accidentally in Greenwich Park. Martial Bourdin’s intentions that cold winter’s morning have always been unclear – was he really trying to blow up the Observatory, site of the Prime Meridian line, in the name of revolutionary anarchism? ‘It would be really telling if one could throw a bomb into pure mathematics’, joked Joseph Conrad in The Secret Agent, his fictional account of the event – ‘an act of destructive ferocity so absurd as to be incomprehensible, inexplicable, almost unthinkable; in fact, mad’.Incomprehensible, inexplicable, unthinkable, mad: these are the clichés often used to describe direct action in the media, where ideological gestures always also appear as oddly aesthetic forms of symbolism and spectacle. Now, from museums and galleries to sport and infrastructure, from performance art to strikes and sabotage, groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil have put direct action front and centre of contemporary political engagement.Two days of creative performances, workshops, film screenings and talks will take the 130th anniversary of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/the-h-word/2016/aug/05/secret-agent-greenwich-observatory-bombing-of-1894" title="https://www.theguardian.com/science/the-h-word/2016/aug/05/secret-agent-greenwich-observatory-bombing-of-1894" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">‘Greenwich Outrage’</a> as an opportunity to bring organisers, activists, scholars and artists together in order to consider the past, present and possible futures of direct action. <h3>Wednesday 14th February</h3><h3> </h3><h4>1–2pm</h4>Workshop: <a href="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/shapes-of-direct-action-visioning-integrities-with-vita-sleigh-tickets-807786881307" title="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/shapes-of-direct-action-visioning-integrities-with-vita-sleigh-tickets-807786881307">‘Shapes of Direct Action: Visioning Integrities’</a>, with Vita SleighLocation: <a href="https://www.kairos.london/" title="https://www.kairos.london/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Kairos</a>, 84 Tottenham Court Rd, London, W1T 4TG <h4>2–3:30pm</h4>Guided walk around anarchist Soho, with Dr Thomas JonesLocation: meet outside <a href="https://www.kairos.london/" title="https://www.kairos.london/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Kairos</a>, 84 Tottenham Court Rd, London, W1T 4TG <h4>3:30–4:30pm</h4><h4>Workshop: <a href="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/everyone-does-it-direct-action-and-everyday-strategies-of-survival-tickets-807830592047" title="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/everyone-does-it-direct-action-and-everyday-strategies-of-survival-tickets-807830592047">‘Everyone Does It: Direct Action and Everyday Strategies of Survival’</a></h4>Location: <a href="https://maydayrooms.org/" title="https://maydayrooms.org/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">MayDay Rooms</a>, 88 Fleet St, London, EC4Y 1DH <h4>6–8:30pm</h4><h4>*<a href="https://www.rmg.co.uk/whats-on/royal-observatory/greenwich-outrage-130th-anniversary-event" title="https://www.rmg.co.uk/whats-on/royal-observatory/greenwich-outrage-130th-anniversary-event" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Panel discussion &amp; screening</a>* of Sabotage, dir. Alfred Hitchcock (1936)</h4>Location: Royal Observatory, GreenwichPanel: Chair: Claire Armitstead (The Guardian), Ines Weizman (RCA), Matthew Beaumont (UCL), Matthew Sweet, Tom McCarthy <h3>Thursday 15th February</h3>Location: 1.33 First Floor Sofa Room, Dept W, Queen Mary, University of London – <a href="https://www.qmul.ac.uk/about/howtofindus/department-w/" title="https://www.qmul.ac.uk/about/howtofindus/department-w/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">how to find us</a>.9–9:30 Tea/coffee and pastries9:30–9:35 Welcome &amp; opening remarks9:35–9:50 Phoebe Plummer, ‘Why are young people entering into civil resistance?’9:55–11:15 Panel: Direct action = assemblages &amp; associations<ul><li>Anthony Cross (Greenwich Historical Society), ‘The Horrible Affair’</li><li>Constance Bantman (Surrey), ‘Greenwich and other forms of direct action’</li><li>Daniel Laqua (Northumbria), ‘German Anarchists in Late-Nineteenth-Century London: Transnational Dialogues and Divisions’</li><li>David Glover (University of Southampton), ‘Morte incidentale di un anarchico: Strategies and Tactics before and after Greenwich’</li></ul>11:15–11:45 Tea/coffee11:45–1 Panel: Direct action = praxis &amp; passion<ul><li>Giulia Carabelli (QMUL), ‘Environmental Direct Action: the practice and meanings of radical care on a collapsing planet’</li><li>Matthew Adams (Loughborough), ‘Anarchist Revolutionary Passions’</li><li>Lisa Bogerts, 'Unjust kidding: Hate memes in far-right online mobilization'</li></ul>1–2 Lunch (provided)2–2:15 Showcase –&gt; Frances Howe2:20–3:35 Panel: Direct action = symbolism &amp; spectacle<ul><li>Martin Coward, ‘Bombing buildings: urbicide and the public city’</li><li>George Legg (KCL), ‘Melodrama, Compassion and the Politics of Illustration in Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent’</li><li>Robert Hampson (RHUL), ‘Anarchists and Aliens: Joseph Conrad and the Greenwich Outrage’</li></ul>3:35–4 Tea/coffee4–4:15 'Can babies be against the bomb?' by Gail Chester4:15–5:30 Panel: Direct action = media &amp; mass culture<ul><li>Alastair Owens (QMUL), ‘A Shrine to Our Lady of Finchley: Toilet Humour and Radical Politics in a Liverpool Vicarage in the 1980s’</li><li>M. Syd Rosen (Cambridge), ‘A.J. Weberman and the Fight to Free Bob Dylan from Himself’</li><li>Ben Stoll (RHUL), ‘The neoliberalisation of resistance: Isaac Julien and the 1980s Uprisings on screen’</li><li>Ansar Ahmed Ullah (QMUL), ‘Summer of protest: Bengali anti-racist mobilisation in 1978’</li></ul>5:30–5:45 Showcase –&gt; Reading Red Kitchen5:45–6 ‘Against Time’ by Paula Serafini and Jérémy Rubenstein6–7 Break &amp; travel to central London <h4>7–9 Workshop: *<a href="https://www.kairos.london/event/effective-resistance-the-role-of-sabotage-with-simon-bramwell/" title="https://www.kairos.london/event/effective-resistance-the-role-of-sabotage-with-simon-bramwell/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Effective Resistance &amp; the role of sabotage</a>*, with Simon Bramwell and Frank Hewetson</h4>Tickets include a talk with discussion and a one-pot vegan supper.Ahead of this discussion, on Tuesday 13th February, Kairos will host a screening of Night Moves. Kelly Reichardt's 2013 feature tells the story of three activists who blow up a dam and the devastating fallout of their action. Starring Jessie Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning and Peter Sarsgaard. Doors and drinks at 6pm; film starts 6:30pm. More information and booking <a href="https://www.kairos.london/event/screening-of-night-moves/" title="https://www.kairos.london/event/screening-of-night-moves/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">here</a>.Location: <a href="https://www.kairos.london/" title="https://www.kairos.london/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Kairos</a>, 84 Tottenham Court Rd, London, W1T 4TG *Please note that booking must be made separately for evening events, using the links provided -- otherwise advance booking is not required and walk-ins are very welcome at any point. These events are generously funded by the <a href="https://www.bbk.ac.uk/research/centres/raphael-samuel-history-centre" title="https://www.bbk.ac.uk/research/centres/raphael-samuel-history-centre" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Raphael Samuel History Centre</a>, <a href="https://bavs.ac.uk/" title="https://bavs.ac.uk/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">British Association of Victorian Studies</a> and QMUL's <a href="https://www.qmul.ac.uk/ihss/funding-opportunities/early-career-workshop-funding-scheme/" title="https://www.qmul.ac.uk/ihss/funding-opportunities/early-career-workshop-funding-scheme/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">IHSS Early Career Workshop Funding Scheme</a>.