Thoreau’s ‘Civil Disobedience’ part of Common Theme events

GREEN BAY — A community discussion of Henry David Thoreau’s essay, “Civil Disobedience,” will be held Tuesday, Oct. 14, as part of the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay’s Common Theme.

The discussion is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Brown County Public Library, 515 Pine St., Green Bay. The event is free and open to the public. Prof. David Voelker, Humanistic Studies and History, will introduce the text and moderate the discussion.

Thoreau’s essay opens with the motto, “That government is best which governs the least.” He argues that government can be a hindrance to the creative enterprise and morals of the people it purports to represent.

Some have compared Thoreau’s essay with Martin Luther King’s “A letter from Birmingham jail,” where King insists, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

UW-Green Bay’s Common Theme is a yearlong program designed to engage the campus and community in the ideals of a liberal arts education and the UW-Green Bay interdisciplinary mission. It is designed to encourage faculty, staff, students, and community members to focus on a general theme from multiple perspectives and have a shared experience with open discussion and critical thinking.

This year’s Common Theme is “Waging War, Waging Peace.”

For more information, and a calendar of other Common Theme events going on throughout the academic year, visit http://www.uwgb.edu/commontheme.

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