I have just had a look at your website and it is great that you are organising resistance to the changes to the university and against the increasingly privatisation of knowledge.

I think you will enjoy the second issue of Stir – http://www.stirtoaction.wordpress.com – it is a great collection of articles and interviews on transforming the university, food justice, intellectual property and more.

Have a read, share, and feel free to republish any articles you find insightful and inspiring.

Best,
Jonny Gordon-Farleigh

Return of the Public?
Interview with Dan Hind

The public may well have made its return to the political stage but the real question is whether it can come back in its own right rather than as the docile invention of a financial elite?

Sod It! Radical Gardening?
by George McKay

‘Certain gardens are described as retreats when they are really attacks’. But how can a garden be an attack, a flower a critique, a trowel an agent of social change?

Food Justice — Changing ‘there’ by changing here
by Matthew Steele

I remember as an undergrad reading Ivan Illich’s 1968 speech to American students working in Mexico and having the once-clear vision of my life’s path confused. Illich’s rather simple, passionate, and poignant criticism has stayed in the back of my consciousness ever since.

Don’t Defend the University, Transform It!
by Amy Clancy

The future of the university hangs in the balance and the instinct to defend it against a wholesale attack seems to be an obvious response. But what is it that so many rush to defend?

The Prejudice Against Prometheus
by Alberto Toscano

As the last echoes of a bullish neoliberalism fade, and we are asked to accustom ourselves, indefinitely, to austerity’s hair-shirts, it’s worth reflecting on whether the attitudes learnt over the past few decades retain within them the resources for effective opposition.

Grow a Grocery!
by Debbie Clarke

Back in the early 90s, Unicorn Grocery’s founders felt frustrated at their lack of shopping options, and aimed to create the kind of place where they wanted to shop themselves—where their needs were met and their ethics not sold out. And so Unicorn was born.

Mobilisation vs Pacification in Brazil’s Favelas
by John Gledhill

Brazilians really are crazy about football, and poor Brazilians are as pleased as everyone else that Brazil is hosting the 2014 World Cup (and 2016 Olympics). Yet families who built their own homes on land to which they did not have secure title also worry about being forcibly relocated because of urban redevelopment in preparation for 2014.

Bound by Law? Tales from the Public Domain
Reviewed by Rashmi Rangnathi

Can a tree and its properties be copyrighted, and those who customarily use it be criminalised? Can the girl scouts be sued for singing copyrighted songs such as “Puff the Magic Dragon” around the campfire? Recently, a corporation trademarked the phrase ‘Radical Media’. With the increasing privatisation of our cultural assets, can we change the system that allows corportations to own our intellectual products?