The Antiuniversity of London was an

anti-establishment An anti-establishment view or belief is one which stands in opposition to the conventional social, political, and economic principles of a society. The term was first used in the modern sense in 1958 by the British magazine ''New Statesman'' ...

alternative education Alternative education encompasses educational philosophy differing from mainstream pedagogy and evidence-based education. Such alternative learning environments may be found within state, charter, and independent schools as well as home-based ...

project founded in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

in February 1968. Established as a " free university", it was initially based at 49 Rivington Street in Shoreditch; in a

Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation The Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, established in 1963, continues the work of the philosopher and activist Bertrand Russell in the areas of peace, social justice, and human rights, with a specific focus on the dangers of nuclear war. Ken Coates ...

building which had previously been used by the

Vietnam Solidarity Campaign The Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC) was originally set up in 1966 by activists around the International Group with the personal and financial support of Bertrand Russell. Ralph Schoenman acted both as Director of the Vietnam Solidarity Camp ...

Background

Inspired by the 1967

Dialectics of Liberation Congress The congress on the Dialectics of Liberation was an international congress organised in London between 15 and 30 July 1967. It was organised by R. D. Laing, David Cooper, the American educationalist Joe Berke, and Leon Redler. The scope of th ...

, a group of radicals met in London from December 1967 through January 1968 to plan for the creation of an "anti-university". These radicals included anti-psychiatrists R. D. Laing and David Cooper; veterans of the

Free University of New York The Free University of New York (FUNY) was an educational social enterprise initiated by Allen Krebs, his wife Sharon Krebs, and James Mellen in July 1965. as reproduced in History FUNY began as a home for professors dismissed from local u ...

, Allen Krebs and Joe Berke; the feminist psychoanalyst

Juliet Mitchell Juliet Mitchell, Lady Goody (born 4 October 1940) is a British psychoanalyst, socialist feminist, research professor and author. Early life and education Mitchell was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1940, and then moved to England in ...

; and the

cultural theorist Culture theory is the branch of comparative anthropology and semiotics that seeks to define the heuristic concept of culture in operational and/or scientific terms. Overview In the 19th century, "culture" was used by some to refer to a wide a ...

Stuart Hall. The Antiuniversity of London was opened to students on 12 February 1968 by David Cooper and Allen Krebs.

Teaching

Faculty members included beat poet

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of th ...

and Black Power activist

Stokely Carmichael Kwame Ture (; born Stokely Standiford Churchill Carmichael; June 29, 1941November 15, 1998) was an American activist who played a major role in the civil rights movement in the United States and the global pan-African movement. Born in Trini ...

(Kwame Ture). Lecturers and speakers included

Cornelius Cardew Cornelius Cardew (7 May 193613 December 1981) was an English experimental music composer, and founder (with Howard Skempton and Michael Parsons) of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected experimental mu ...

, C. L. R. James,

Robin Blackburn Robin Blackburn (born 1940) is a British historian, a former editor of ''New Left Review'' (1983–1999), and emeritus professor in the department of sociology at Essex University. Background Blackburn was educated at Hurstpierpoint College, ...

Bob Cobbing Bob Cobbing (30 July 1920 – 29 September 2002) was a British sound, visual, concrete and performance poet who was a central figure in the British Poetry Revival. Early life Cobbing was born in Enfield. He attended Enfield Grammar School and ...

Yoko Ono Yoko Ono (, usually spelled in katakana as ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up in Tokyo and moved to New York ...

Jeff Nuttall Jeffrey Addison Nuttall (8 July 1933 – 4 January 2004) was an English poet, performer, author, actor, teacher, painter, sculptor, jazz musician, anarchist and social commentator who was a key part of the British 1960s counter-culture. He was ...

, John Latham and

Alex Trocchi Alexander Whitelaw Robertson Trocchi ( ; 30 July 1925 – 15 April 1984) was a Scottish novelist. Early life and career Trocchi was born in Glasgow to Alfred (formerly Alfredo) Trocchi, a music-hall performer of Italian parentage, and Annie ...

. Other notable participants include sociologist Calvin C. Hernton and

Obi Egbuna Obi Benue Egbuna (18 July 1938 – 18 January 2014) was a Nigerian-born novelist, playwright and political activist known for leading the Universal Coloured People's Association (UCPA) and being a member of the British Black Panthers, Britis ...

, founder of the Universal Coloured People's Association and member of the

British Black Panthers The British Black Panthers (BBP) or the British Black Panther movement (BPM) was a Black Power organisation in the United Kingdom that fought for the rights of black people and racial minorities in the country. The BBP were inspired by the US ...

. The antiuniversity was described by Joe Berke as part of a "vanguard of large scale resistance which in the West takes the form of cultural guerrilla warfare". The style of teaching at the Antiuniversity was highly unconventional. The core syllabus focused on radical politics, existential psychiatry and the artistic avant-garde. In one class, founding teacher Joe Berke asked: "How can we discuss how we can discuss what we want to discuss?" To which a student answered "Maybe we don’t need to discuss it." After pondering this for a moment Berke then left, and the class continued for an hour despite his absence. The Antiuniversity effectively operated as a " free university"; an organisation offering unaccredited, public classes without restrictions on who can teach or learn. Despite this, the antiuniveristy charged an initial membership fee of £8, plus 10

shillings The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 12 pence ...

for each course attended. Nonetheless, Bob Cobbing resigned from the antiuniversity on 7 July 1968 in a letter to Joe Berke, citing among other things the untenable economic situation created by the antiuniversity's decrying of membership fees combined with a lack of alternative funding arrangements.

Decline

Under the pressure of mounting bills and squatters, the Antiuniversity was forced out of its campus building on Rivington Street by August 1968 when it was taken back by its owner, the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation. The antiuniversity continued holding lectures and classes at various locations including members' flats and various pubs, although the last known advertisements for the antiuniversity date to 1971. 49 Rivington Street is now occupied by an

artisan An artisan (from , ) is a skilled craft worker who makes or creates material objects partly or entirely by hand. These objects may be functional or strictly decorative, for example furniture, decorative art, sculpture, clothing, food ite ...

shoemaker's shop, and much of the Shoreditch area has since been

gentrified Gentrification is the process whereby the character of a neighborhood changes through the influx of more affluent residents (the "gentry") and investment. There is no agreed-upon definition of gentrification. In public discourse, it has been us ...

Legacy

Among the lecturers at the Antiuniversity was psychoanalyst and feminist

, who persuaded one of her students - Diana Gravill - to use money that she had inherited to set up a bookshop with her partner on

Camden High Street The A400 road is an A roads in Great Britain, A road in London that runs from Charing Cross (near Trafalgar Square, in London's West End of London, West End) to Archway, London, Archway in North London. It passes some of London's most famous l ...

in 1968.

Compendium Books Compendium Books was an independent bookstore in London specialising in experimental literary and theoretical publications, from 1968 until its closure in 2000. ''The Guardians John Williams described it as "Britain's pre-eminent radical book ...

went on to become a hub for radical literature for 30 years before closing in 2000.

Revival

The Antiuniversity was revived in 2015 as "Antiuniversity Now", in part as a protest against

tuition fees Tuition payments, usually known as tuition in American English and as tuition fees in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English, are fees charged by education institutions for instruction or other services. Besides public spen ...

. It functions in much the same way as the original antiuniversity, holding free and open events with a "non-hierarchical, participatory and democratic

pedagogy Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political, and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken ...

External links

Antiuniversity Now website

Interviews with Allen Krebs and David Cooper (VIDEO)

Antiuniversity Tabloid material

References

{{reflist 1968 establishments in England Educational institutions established in 1968 Free universities