Concordia University - Hall Building, 7th Floor, CSU Lounge
with David Bernans, Sabine Friesinger and David Austin
Co-presented by: Free Education Montreal, QPIRG Concordia, Uberculture & the People’s Campus Coalition
Concordia has a rich activist history that the administration won’t put in their brochures. Over the years, diverse students have come together to fight for their vision of the university, and won. The Real History of Concordia will host speakers with fresh perspectives on the 1969 Computer Center Riot & 2002 Netanyahu uprising as well as the successful battle to freeze tuition in the 90s.
A discussion on future directions of student activism at Concordia will follow. Concordia was originally founded to provide accessible education to working class Montrealers. Knowing the history of our university will help us protect its legacy of social justice and accessibility.
David Bernans was once a faculty member in Concordia’s Political Science Department and he is a past President of Concordia’s GSA. On the fifth anniversary of 9/11, Concordia University’s secret “Risk Assessment Committee” banned Dr. Bernans from doing a public on-campus reading from his novel, North of 9/11 (Cumulus Press, 2006). He is also the author of Con U Inc.: How Your Fee Increases Keep Corporations in the Black and was a panelist at the November Free Education Montreal/Arts and Science Federation of Associations event ‘Just Ask’!
Sabine Friesinger studied communications and journalism at Concordia University. She was actively involved in the student movement and was elected president of the Concordia Student Union in 2002 during the infamous Concordia Intifada against current Israeli Prime Minister B. Netanyahu and his Apartheid policies. Today, she continues to advocate for social justice and human rights.
David Austin is a long-standing community worker and activist, and a co-founder of the Alfie Roberts Institute. He is the author of numerous articles on race, colonialism, and the Caribbean left and its diaspora, and the editor of You Don’t Play with Revolution: The Montreal Lectures of CLR James (AK Press, 2009) and A View for Freedom: Alfie Roberts Speaks on the Caribbean, Cricket, Montreal, and C.L.R. James. He is currently completing a book tentatively titled Fear of a Black Planet: Race, Security and Subversion and the Practice of Diaspora (2012 ) and teaches in the Humanities, Philosophy, and Religion Department at John Abbott College in Montreal.
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