Common Word Community Read: “Political Violence as Terrorism”

On March 18, Mark Gibney, Carol G. Belk Distinguished Professor of Political Science at UNC Asheville, will discuss the link between politics, violence, and terror, relating the events of this semester’s Community Read book, “Wilmington’s Lie,” to contemporary crises around the globe.

The event will be from 6-8 p.m.in the OLLI Reuter Center, Manheimer Room 102. It is free and open to the public. Register to attend here. Live streaming will be available.

“Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy,” by David Zucchino, is the most complete and in-depth account of the massacre of Wilmington’s Black community as well as the violence and the political and media campaign that followed.

Since 1984, Gibney has directed the Political Terror Scale (PTS), which measures levels of physical integrity violations in more than 185 countries. He is also one of the founding members of the Extraterritorial Obligations (ETO) Human Rights Consortium, which in November 2011 produced the Maastricht Principles on Extraterritorial Obligations of States in the area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In 2011, Gibney was recognized by the Human Rights Section of the American Political Science Association as a Distinguished Human Rights Scholar and in 2006 he received the International Human Rights Award from the North Carolina Coalition on Human Rights.

This is the second of a three-event series, the Common Word Community Read, which brings the UNC Asheville community together each semester around a shared text to engage in a collective educational experience that features lectures and discussions in a welcoming and respectful environment. The program is curated by Wiley Cash, New York Times bestselling author, alumnus of the class of 2000, and UNCA’s Executive Director of Literary Arts.