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This year's Selig Brodetsky Memorial Lecture at the University of Leeds will be delivered by Professor Sander Gilman (Emory University), who will speak on "Why the Jews are the Smartest People in the Universe, and Why this is a Bad Thing" (abstract below).  The lecture will be delivered on Monday 3 October at 6:00 in the Rupert Beckett Lecture Theatre, in the Michael Sadler Arts Building, on the university campus.  It will be followed by a reception.

This series of annual lectures was established in memory of Selig Brodetsky (1888-1954), who occupied the Chair of Applied Mathematics at the University of Leeds from 1924 to 1948.  Following Brodetsky's death in 1954 a number of his friends and admirers founded the series of memorial lectures that bears his name.  Each year a lecture is delivered that addresses some aspect of either Jewish studies or mathematics.

The lectures are organised by the Centre for Jewish Studies, in collaboration with the Centre for History and Philosophy of Science (School of Humanities) and the School of Mathematics.

Further information can be obtained from Dr Eva Frojmovic, email [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>.

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Abstract: The claims about Jewish intellectual superiority surface regularly even in the 21st century.  Modern genetics, it is claimed, proves that Jews are smart and that this is a singular component of being Jewish.  It can't be a bad thing to be smart.  Or can it?  In this lecture, we will explore the possibility that this claim, which has the appearance of philosemitism, is in fact a form of anti-semitism -- the more insidious for traditionally masking itself as being supportive of the Jews as an imagined collective.



Gregory Radick
Professor of History and Philosophy of Science
Department of Philosophy
University of Leeds
Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
Tel: (UK) 0113 343 3269
Email: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Website: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/arts/people/20048/philosophy/person/861/gregory_radick