CfP: On Direct Action; Or, How (Not) to Blow Up an Observatory

On Direct Action; Or, How (Not) to Blow Up an Observatory

15–16th February 2024 | Royal Observatory Greenwich and Queen Mary, University of London

‘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 or 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 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.

This event takes the 130^th anniversary of the ‘Greenwich Bomb Outrage’ as an opportunity to bring organisers, activists, scholars and artists together to consider the past, present and possible futures of direct action. 

During two days of creative performances, workshops, film screenings and talks, we will debate: 

• How might global histories of revolutionary praxis inform and inspire our response to urgent political crises today?
• What ideologies, tactics, strategies and affects underpin direct action?
• How do we (or should we) measure success and failure? 
• What is the symbolic power of direct action in the mainstream media?
• What kinds of networks and connections does direct action facilitate?
• How has direct action between represented in art, literature and visual culture?

If you would like to take part, please send a short (max. 300 word) expression of interest, accompanied by brief biographies, to directaction1894@gmail.com by Friday 1 December 2023.

We are open to contributions in any format: talks, creative performances, in-conversation discussions, multimedia pieces and more. Participants may address the topic of direct action in any period of history, consider approaches from any country, and originate from any theoretical perspective.