Please see the programme for a symposium on Militanz and Gewalt in Germany, from 1968 to the G20. The event is free and open to the public with registration.


Violence and Militancy from ‘68 to the G20

Nihon Room, Pembroke College, Cambridge | September 14, 2017



‘Gewalt’ and ‘Militanz’ have long played a critical role in the theory and practice of violence and counterviolence on the radical German Left. From the politics of the personal put forward by the 68ers to the recent events in Hamburg, leftists have for decades grappled with political violence and the militant politics of identity in terms of their own self-formation, practice and political resistance.



This symposium, the final event in a DAAD-funded series entitled Herrschaft and Gewalt from the Kaiserreich to the Berlin Republic, brings together international experts in the history, theory and practice of militant violence, including: the Black Panthers, the 1970s and 80s anti-nuclear protests, the 1980s squatting wave in Germany and the Netherlands, the urban terrorism of the Red Army Fraction, and the role of intellectuals across Europe who participated in this wider network. This session will apply history and theory to understand recent shifts in political violence, opening a space to discuss the evolution of this striking form of political contestation and interrogating the idea of militancy as the uniting feature of leftwing violence since 1968 in both a German and a transnational context.



9:30                     Arrival and Coffee

10:00                   Ms Ali Jones - Opening Remarks

10:15-11:30        Professor Kimberly Hutchings, Queen Mary University of London

‘Does the Idea of Militant Non-Violence Make Sense?’

11:30-12:30        Dr Andrew Tompkins, Sheffield University

‘'Peaceful but offensive' protest: Varieties of Violence in the 1970s Anti-Nuclear Movement’

12:30-14:00        Lunch break

14:00-15:00        Mr Gert Levy, Gestalttherapeut, Köln

‘Militant leftwing-movements in Germany since 1962’

15:00-15:30        Coffee break

15:30-16:30        Dr Bart van der Steen, Leiden University

‘In the shadow of the Red Army Faction: Debating the boundaries of militant activism in the 1980s’

16:30-17:30        Questions and discussion

19:00                   Conference dinner at Sala thong, 35 Newnham Road



The event takes place on 14 September 2017 in the Nihon Room, Pembroke College, Cambridge, 9:30-17:30 (map: Anchorhttps://goo.gl/VnIn0U)



The event is free and open to the public. Seating is limited to 50.  Please register via email to Ms Ali Jones at: [log in to unmask]