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Smart Jews : the construction of the image of Jewish superior intelligence

Author: Sander L Gilman
Publisher: Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, ©1996.
Edition/Format:   Book : EnglishView all editions and formats
Summary:
Smart Jews addresses one of the most controversial theories of our day: the alleged connection between race (or ethnicity), intelligence, and virtue. Sander L. Gilman shows that such theories have a long, disturbing history. He examines a wide range of texts - scientific treatises, novels, films, philosophical works, and operas - that assert the greater intelligence (and, often, lesser virtue) of Jews. The book  Read more...
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Additional Physical Format: Online version:
Gilman, Sander L.
Smart Jews.
Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, c1996
(OCoLC)606077381
Document Type: Book
All Authors / Contributors: Sander L Gilman
ISBN: 0803221584 9780803221581
OCLC Number: 33358118
Description: viii, 246 p. ; 24 cm.
Responsibility: Sander L. Gilman.
More information:

Abstract:

Smart Jews addresses one of the most controversial theories of our day: the alleged connection between race (or ethnicity), intelligence, and virtue. Sander L. Gilman shows that such theories have a long, disturbing history. He examines a wide range of texts - scientific treatises, novels, films, philosophical works, and operas - that assert the greater intelligence (and, often, lesser virtue) of Jews. The book opens with a discussion of concepts that relate intelligence and race (particularly those that figure in the controversial bestseller The Bell Curve); it then describes "scientific" theories of Jewish superior intelligence that were developed in the ninteenth and early twentieth centuries. Gilman explores the reactions to those theories by Jewish scientists and intellectuals of that era, including Sigmund Freud, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The conclusion turns to how such ideas figure in modern novels and films, from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon to Stephen Spielberg's Schindler's List and Robert Redford's Quiz Show. Gilman demonstrates how stereotypes can permeate society, finding expression in everything from scientific work to popular culture. And he shows how the seemingly flattering attribution of superior intelligence has served to isolate Jews and to cast upon them the imputation of lesser virtue.

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