Banish those winter blues next year and join us on Tuesday 9th February for the third Applied History event, at UCL’s Institute of Archaeology, Room 6.12 (London,WC1H 0PY). As usual, the event is free but booking is essential. You can book through our Eventbrite page and don’t forget to tell everyone.
The event will be looking at the importance of radical bookshops as “sites of resistance.” The 1970s saw a peak in the numbers of bookshops dedicated to providing access to alternative publications covering the growing anti-racist, LGBT+ and feminist movements, amongst others. Many of these bookshops also acted as meeting places and support centres for new and established groups, and offered a template for encouraging further grassroots and community activism and campaigning. More recently, the numbers of these vital “sites of resistance” have closed due to increasing rents, funding cuts, the growth of online bookstores and competition from larger bookshops.
Although bookshops have been a core element of campaigns, as a subject this seems to have been neglected by researchers and historians of social history. Key questions that we will cover are: has the internet already filled the space left by these important centres? What is the future of activism and campaigning? And the future of radical bookshops?
Speakers:
Sarah Garrod – Archivist, George Padmore Institute
Nik Gorecki – Co-ordinator, Alliance of Radical Booksellers and co-manager of Housmans
Ken Worpole – Author
Rosa Vilbr – Oral historian and founder of On the Record
Tickets available here!
This event in supported by the Raphael Samuel History Centre and the Public History Discussion Group
Applied History Network 