The Really Open University will be having open, fun and participatory events and discussions. Enrol now to recieve email updates.
We don't want to defend the university We want to transform it!
T-Shirts Now Available!
Take Action
-
London Met Occupies!
On May 4th, 2011 with 70% cuts London Met students occupied the Graduate centre on Holloway road. They are calling for national demonstration to support them. Statement A certain area of the Tower Building in Holloway Road is being currently occupied by students in protest against Vice- Chancellor Malcolm Gillies’ decision to axe 70% of […]
-
Book Bloc in Netherlands – March 21 – 26th: Week of Action
A reflection on ‘Onderwijs is een recht’ (Education is a right) demonstration on the 25th of March, The Hague, Netherlands. Halfway the largest student demonstration since decades in the Netherlands on 21st of January in The Hague, with its spectacular high stage, I climbed up its scaffolds to film from as high as possible. And […]
-
Albany Occupation
Albany Occupation March 30, 2011 A video from the NY statehouse in Albany, where grad students, high school students teachers and other government employees are protesting deep and damaging budget cuts to education at all levels.
-
Students and Community Supporters Occupy Social Sciences Tower at University of Minnesota
Students and Community Supporters Occupy Social Sciences Tower at University of Minnesota Twin Cities Campus – West Bank http://umnsolidarity.wordpress.com/ Occupying in Solidarity with Wisconsin Students and Workers and Against University Budget Cuts Minneapolis – On Monday, March 28th, a group of students and community members have occupied the first floor of the Social Sciences tower […]
-
Your money or your life: people before profit!
Find the feature with photos, video and materials http://www.cantiere.org/art-03205/people-before-profits-azione-alla-borsa-di-milano.html Euphoria to the italian “Wall Street”, the so-called “Borsa” of Milan located in “Piazza Affari=business square” : Europe rises up, particularly involving banks & financial centres. The italian “Borsa” reacts in order to stop an action of important cultural value, fearing an attack that can cause […]
Occupation of the Political
-
What is movement: suffocation and contradiction within the Leeds occupation
Originally posted in a discussion about the political organisation of the Leeds occupation, this contribution was authored by Bertie Russell. The ‘occupied Leeds’ facebook page has now had debates going on for a number of days, loosely exploring the conflicts/differences between ‘SWP’ and ‘autonomous’ approaches. It’s worth saying, from the outset, that neither ‘SWP’ or […]
-
How the Revolution killed the revolution
By an Anonymous Leeds occupier, received via email. The tactic is clear: see a struggle, consume it and brand it as their own. It’s painfully ironic that the most vocal critics of the far right and “the system” instigate the same strategies, tools and manipulative behaviors as those they paint themselves the antithesis to: the same […]
-
The art of living counter to all forms of fascism…
In the preface to Deleuze & Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus, Michel Foucault offers seven reflections on the conduct of the political. We believe it is timely to remind both ourselves, and all of those in the flow of the current political wave, of Foucault’s insights. Do not defend the present; control the future! Free political action from all […]
-
How to not shrink and die…
An inquisition into the state of the ‘occupation of the political’ occurring within the occupied Michael Sadler lecture theatre: The occupation of the Michael Sadler Building at Leeds University has been going on for over a week now, and I have a number of questions (and suggestions) regarding the way it is run. I am […]
-
‘The Occupation is a Serious Matter’
Tuesday 30th November witnessed the second national day of action against education cuts. In Leeds, there was a march of around 500 to the city centre and back, followed by the flash occupation of the Ziff administrative building. The flash occupation brought to the fore tensions over the ‘control’ of the unfolding politics; Who gets […]
Events
-
People’s University in Washington Square
Out from the classrooms and into public space, in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street. About The People’s University brings education out from the classrooms into public spaces. The People’s University refuses exclusions and limitations on access both to education and to public space. The People’s University is open to people of all races, genders, sexual […]
-
The Private Law of Protest
The Private Law of Protest: Workshop at Kent Law School, November 4, 2011. This one-day workshop will examine the deployment of private law by university management against students in the context of recent protests against the marketisation of learning and teaching. The workshop will draw on the experiences of occupiers and their lawyers in mapping […]
-
Call for a Transnational Meeting in Tunisia
Call for a Transnational Meeting in Tunisia We, students, precarious workers, unemployed, and activists of Europe and North Africa met in Tunis to share our knowledge and begin a process of common struggles. The struggles that have swept across North Africa over the last few months spoke to the entire globe because the absence of […]
-
Greek Public Universities in Danger
To the international academic community PUBLIC Greek Universities in Danger In the last few years, a wave of ‘reforms’ within the European Union and throughout the world has subjected Higher Education to the logic of the market. Higher Education has increasingly been transformed from a public good and a civil right to a commodity for […]
News
-
Inside the Egyptian Revolution,
Last night (23/10/11) the Space Project played host to Jano Charbell, journalist and anarchist activist from Cairo in Egypt. Jano spoke to an audience of about 30 in the newly decorated space, about the conditions in Egypt since the revolution began and Mubarak fell. He warned of the counter-revolutionary activities of the ruling military council […]
-
Call for a Transnational Meeting in Tunisia
Call for a Transnational Meeting in Tunisia We, students, precarious workers, unemployed, and activists of Europe and North Africa met in Tunis to share our knowledge and begin a process of common struggles. The struggles that have swept across North Africa over the last few months spoke to the entire globe because the absence of […]
-
Greek Public Universities in Danger
To the international academic community PUBLIC Greek Universities in Danger In the last few years, a wave of ‘reforms’ within the European Union and throughout the world has subjected Higher Education to the logic of the market. Higher Education has increasingly been transformed from a public good and a civil right to a commodity for […]
-
Free Frank Fernie
In recent weeks a number of prison sentences have been handed out to some of those arrested during the student protests of late last year and also the ‘March for the Alternative’ demonstration of this year, of which Frank fernie is just one and Charlie Gilour perhaps the most well known. There are a number […]
Commentary
-
Mike Davis: Wall Street through the augmented eyes of “Rowdy” Roddy Piper
by Mike Davis Who could have envisioned Occupy Wall Street and its sudden wildflower-like profusion in cities large and small? John Carpenter could have, and did. Almost a quarter of a century ago (1988), the master of date-night terror (Halloween, The Thing), wrote and directed They Live, depicting the Age of Reagan as a catastrophic […]
-
People’s University in Washington Square
Out from the classrooms and into public space, in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street. About The People’s University brings education out from the classrooms into public spaces. The People’s University refuses exclusions and limitations on access both to education and to public space. The People’s University is open to people of all races, genders, sexual […]
-
The Fight for ‘Real Democracy’ at the Heart of Occupy Wall Street
The Encampment in Lower Manhattan Speaks to a Failure of Representation By Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri Demonstrations under the banner of Occupy Wall Street resonate with so many people not only because they give voice to a widespread sense of economic injustice but also, and perhaps more important, because they express political grievances and […]
-
‘Creative’ Functionalism and Continental Philosophy at Middlesex
By Paula Gilligan On May 10th, 2010, the management of Middlesex University in England shut down its Philosophy Department. This act provoked a spate of letters in the newspapers. Now, while the general attack on the Humanities in the United Kingdom has been going on for some time, –for a good many years before the […]
-
Academic Free Fall
By Neil Smith. When I left Britain in the 1970s to pursue a doctorate in the US, it was an item of faith that US universities were far more corporatized than their UK counterparts, in the social sciences as well as the natural sciences. To be sure the British system was often stuffy and harboured […]
Blogroll
- Communique from an Absent Future
- DIY Guide to Occupations
- Domino of university occupations in Greece, in midst of turmoil
- Edu-Factory
- Italy: “Anomalous Wave” booklet in English, PDF
- UK Uni Occupations
- Uniriot
- University of Utopia
- We are the Crisis: The University Beyond Capitalism
- we want everything:critical theory and content from the nascent california student occupation movement
Copyleft
This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.
Really Open University 
Finally.
Er… it is just me and you then? 🙂 I’ve just come across the ROU at a good time as I’ve just started a PhD in Music at Leeds. Best wishes
Hi Cliff. Sign up to the email list at the link above, we will be sending out news of events very soon.
Thanks – have done!