Clicking on the timetable image should increase its size.
All rooms are wheelchair accessible.
If anyone is in need to a sign language interpreter please contact radbookfair@hotmail.com and we will do our best to provide one.
ROOM 1 – RHB 137
12.30PM-1.30PM – Room RHB137
‘If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution’ with Vincent Bevins and Laleh Khalili
Why has a decade of large-scale rolling revolts produced no revolution, no significant structural reform? From the so-called Arab Spring to Gezi Park in Turkey, from Ukraine’s Euromaidan to student rebellions in Chile and Hong Kong, the second decade of the twenty-first century was propelled by explosive mass demonstrations. But few people got what they wanted. In too many cases, the protests led to the opposite of what they asked for.
If We Burn is a stirring work of global history built around that strange but fundamental paradox. Acclaimed journalist Vincent Bevins interviewed hundreds of people around the world, and weaves their insights and recollections into a fast-paced, gripping narrative. We follow his own troubling experiences in Brazil, where a protest movement ignited by leftists and anarchists led to an extreme-right government that torched the Amazon.
In the mass protest decade, humanity demonstrated a deep desire for change, and brave individuals started something that has been left unfinished. In this ground-breaking study of an extraordinary chain of events, protesters and major actors offer urgent lessons for those who wish to understand geopolitics today, and create a better world tomorrow
2PM-3.30PM – Room RHB137
Repeater Books Present:
‘Realists of a Larger Reality’
with Rhyd Wildermuth and Carl Neville
In the spirit of the work of Mark Fisher, authors from Repeater Books discuss the tensions between imagining utopias and capitalist realism.
The left has been the province of dreamers, of fantasies, and especially of the “impossible.” More than this, the left has been the province of tricksters and rogues, those who pull back the curtain on the fantasies of this world, who reveal the magic tricks that keep capital and the powerful in place. It’s been the leftists who’ve shown this political and economic system, this “reality,” to have been born from other fantasies and other dreams. And if this world was dreamt up in conspiracy, then can we not dream up and conspire a better one?
In this presentation, we’ll look at the role of imagination and the imaginal in radical politics, the way our imagination is shaped and restrained by “capitalist realism,” and the abundance of really-existing other worlds which we too often ignore in our dreamings. We’ll also look at the matter of “larger reality” and how our failure to include it in our visions for a better world can turn our dreams into nightmares.
Rhyd Wildermuth is author of ‘Here Be Monsters: How to Fight Capitalism Instead of Each Other’ (Repeater Books, 2023)
Carl Neville has published several fiction and nonfiction titles with Zero and Repeater and is currently film critic for Tribune.
https://repeaterbooks.com
4PM-5PM – Room RHB137
‘How We Win’ – hosted by Peace News
Are you angry about climate change, the cost of living crisis and the arms trade? Are you concerned about the rights of refugees or the rise of the far right? Do you want to end zero hours contracts or protect your local library from closure? If so then Peace News’ ‘How We Win’ workshop might be for you.
Run by long-time campaigners, and drawing on decades of activist experience, this is an opportunity to explore how we can take effective action to bring about the changes we want to see in the world.
https://peacenews.info
ROOM 2 – RHB 137a
1PM-2.30PM – Room RHB137a
‘What Nature Wishes Our Politicians Were Doing’ hosted by Hothouse Book Club
Join Hothouse Book Club, an online and IRL book club centered on climate justice, to discuss ‘What Nature Wishes Our Politicians Were Doing’. This panel talk will explore policy-led, practical approaches to addressing the environmental and climate crisis and will be led by Hothouse’s co-founders Issey Gladston and Diyora Shadijanova, with guest speakers Josh Gabbatiss Climate policy correspondent for Carbon Brief and another speaker tbc.
https://www.instagram.com/hothousebookclub/
3.30PM-5.00PM – Room RHB137a
‘Ecosocialism NOT Extinction’ hosted by Resistance Books and Rupture: Ecosocialist Quarterly
Capitalism is killing the planet. The drive for profit is tearing apart the ecosystem. Planetary boundaries have been breached as carbon and other greenhouse gasses accumulate. We urgently need an eco-socialist movement. Join the meeting to hear from the speakers about campaigns today, ideas for a movement to stop climate chaos, and what ecosocialism is.
Speakers
- Diana O’Dwyer, ecosocialist activist in Ireland, and member of the marxist RISE network.
- Emma River-Roberts, The Working Class Climate Alliance, and organiser of the Ecosocialism 2023 conference.
- Simon Pirani, People and Nature blog and transport policy campaigner
- Simon Hannah, Anti-Capitalist Resistance, and organiser of the Ecosocialism 2023 conference
https://resistancebooks.org
https://rupture.ie
ROOM 3 – RHB 142
12.30PM-1.30PM – Room RHB142
Solidarity Not Charity: The Making of DOPE Magazine
DOPE Magazine is a quarterly newspaper published by Dog Section Press; anarchist in both content and practice. They distribute free bundles of DOPE to anyone who could use a little solidarity, to sell on the street. Working with a network of radical bookshops, social centers, homeless organisations and independent volunteers, they currently distribute 35,000 copies each issue. This is worth over £100,000 to our street-vendors – or £400,000+ annually.
They’ll be debuting a short film (19mins) about the project entitled ‘Solidarity Not Charity: The Making of DOPE Magazine’, followed by a Q&A with a member of the collective. Come and find out about this incredible publishing and mutual aid success story.
https://www.dopemag.org
2PM-3PM – Room RHB142
‘Hammer Blow! The use of tactics in a direct action campaign’ with Andrea Needham and Emily Johns
A talk considering the use of tactics in a direct action campaign: the example of Seeds of Hope Ploughshares.
In 1996, Jo Blackman, Lotta Kronlid and Andrea Needham broke into a British Aerospace factory and used hammers to disarm a Hawk warplane bound for Indonesia, for use in occupied East Timor. They were charged with £2.4m of criminal damage. A week later, Angie Zelter was arrested for conspiracy. After six months in prison, all four were acquitted after effectively putting Britain’s arms trade on trial.
Speaker Andrea Needham is the author of ‘The Hammer Blow – how 10 women disarmed a warplane’ (Peace News Press, 2016). Facilitator Emily Johns was in the Seeds of Hope Ploughshares Support Group.
4.30PM-5.30PM – Room RHB142
An Introduction To Palestine Action
For years, Palestine Action has been taking direct action against British companies that supply weapons, or components of them, to the Israeli state. Come and find out about our work and how you can get involved and support.
Presentation followed by Q&A
https://www.palestineaction.org
ROOM 4 – RHB 143
1-2PM – Room RHB143
‘Radical Print Culture’ hosted by MayDay Rooms
May Day Room’s new publication, Agit-Prop Notes documents the radical print culture that erupted in the 1970s! The period saw political and social movement groups taking-up newly accessible and affordable small off-set litho, screen printing and duplication technologies to produce leaflets, newspapers, flyers, comics bulletin, positioning papers all in the aid of struggle.
Come and hear about the history and utility of radical print media. Learn how types of collective production and design gave material form to types of organisation, experimentation, orientation and authority. Discover how these e past forms of production remain relevant for organising today
MayDay Rooms is an archive, resource and safe haven for social movements, experimental and marginal cultures and their histories.
https://maydayrooms.org
3-4.30PM – Room RHB143
This event has been cancelled – apologies for any dissapointment‘To what extent do Trade Unions maintain Capitalism?’
hosted by Pagliacci Rossi
Pagliacci Rossi invites you to a discussion between The Angry Workers collective and editors from the journal Notes from Below. This discussion will ask what role trade unions play in the maintenance of Capitalism, and in recognition of these possible limits, why must and do we continue to struggle through these forms?
Short presentations will be followed by a Q&A and wider discussion. https://pagliaccirossi.wordpress.com
https://www.angryworkers.org
https://notesfrombelow.org
ROOM 5 RHB 300
4-5pm – Room RHB300
Poet’s Hardship Fund poetry reading with Paige Murphy, Luke Roberts and Edmund Hard
The Poet’s Hardship Fund is a volunteer-run organisation mutual aid fund for poets in the UK. After a decade of punitive austerity and a brutally mismanaged pandemic, the Poets’ Hardship Fund UK provides a channel for getting some money to poets who require it, without the kind of means-testing processes attached to similar kinds of efforts. While the scale of what we’re dealing with far exceeds any of our individual capacities for making change—the problems we’re seeking to address extending far beyond any discernible ‘poetry community’—we see this fund as, at least, ‘a start’. The premise is simple: give when you can and take when you can’t. Reading for the Poet’s Hardship Fund are: Paige Murphy, Luke Roberts and Edmund Hardy.
https://poetshardshipfunduk.com
ROOM 6 RHB 300a
2-4pm – Room RHB300a
‘Abolition 101’ workshop hosted by Cradle Community
*Maximum 30 participants, arrive early to avoid disappointment*
Join Angelica and Jess from Cradle Community, to explore what prison abolition is and how we can build a world without prisons. In this interactive workshop we will cover:
- Colonial roots of Policing
- British context of criminal punishment
- Why Abolition?
- Reforms to avoid
- Abolitionist steps
- Transformative Justice in our everyday lives
Cradle Community is a collective of artists, activists and facilitators who co-wrote Brick by Brick: How we build a world without prisons, Hajar Press, 2021. Cradle is a collective of facilitators, organisers, scholars and artists finding ways to make space for curiosity, compassion and creativity. In our mission to build a world with transformative justice responses to violence, we believe we all need to develop the skills to support radical approaches to collective care and healing in our communities.
There’ll be 30 spots available on a first come first served basis. See you there!
http://www.cradlecommunity.co.uk
London Radical Bookfair 