Students, faculty, staff and members of the Athens community are invited for a documentary and discussion on the Alternative Right.
The Miller Learning Center is hosting Dr. Joe Mulhall, a researcher with the British anti-racist group Hope Not Hate, as he leads the screening and discussion of the documentary “The International Alt-Right.” The 30-minute film details how a Swedish graduate student Patrik Hermansson went undercover for year with the Alt-Right in the United Kingdom and the US. UGA Professor Cas Mudde has collaborated with the organization. He says the student used the movement’s interest in Scandinavians to his advantage during his undercover stint.
“Swedes in particular, they’re kind of considered the ultimate white people,” according to Mudde. “I think he played on that and got access and has some quite stunning footage of important people within the international alt-right movement speaking very candidly.”
Mudde, who is Dutch, says the alt-right groups in the US and Europe are similar.
“The alt-right, which really is just a combination of racists and white nationalists, is a marginal movement.”
He believes it’s important to hold these types of discussions in the south.
“I think that in general, one of the things that I dislike about the activity about the radical right in the US is that it’s almost always done in the Northeast or on the West coast” Mudde said. “And they’re talking about issues that actually predominately play out in the South or in the Midwest. From that perspective alone it’s important to have these organizations reach out to middle American or the heartland or whatever you want to call it.”
The discussion will touch on a variety of concerns. What is the “alt-right?” What are its international connections? Is this a violent marginal fringe or something more central to the current American zeitgeist?
The screening and discussion is from 3:30 to 5 pm Tuesday, September 3, 2017 at the Miller Learning Center. The event free and open to the public.