Lipstadt to speak at Kansas University

Professor Lipstadt will be speaking at the University of Kansas, (Lawrence, Kansas) on Sept. 14:

Author Lipstadt to Speak at KU About Winning Libel Suit by Holocaust Denier

Humanities Lecture Series is the oldest continuing series at KU

Lawrence, Kan. - infoZine - The University of Kansas' Hall Center for the Humanities will open its 2005-2006 Humanities Lecture Series with professor and author Deborah Lipstadt, who will speak on "History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving," at 7:30 p.m., Sept. 14 in the Woodruff Auditorium of the Kansas Union. The event is free and open to the public.

Lipstadt, professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University, will expound on her book "History on Trial," which details her 2000 libel trial in London when Irving sued her for calling him a Holocaust denier and right wing extremist. The judge handed down a stongly worded decision declaring Irving to be a Holocaust denier, a falsifier of history, a racist, an anti-Semite and a liar.

The libel trial was described by London's Daily Telegraph as having "done for the new century what the Nuremberg trial did for earlier generations." Lipstadt's lecture will analyze the major issues involved in her lawsuit in London and link them to the rise of the "new anti-Semitism."

Lipstadt is also the author of Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory and Beyond Belief: The American Press and The Coming of the Holocaust.

Founded in 1947, the Humanities Lecture Series is the oldest continuing series at KU. More than 150 eminent scholars from around the world have participated in the program, including author Vladimir Nabokov, painter Thomas Hart Benton and author Aldous Huxley. Recent scholars have included Edward Said, Dava Sobel, Sherman Alexie and E.O. Wilson. Shortly after the program's inception, a lecture by one outstanding KU faculty member each year was added to the schedule.

Upcoming speakers in the 2005-2006 series include author Salman Rushdie, human rights scholar Samantha Power, and attorney and author Scott Turow.

For more information, please contact the Hall Center at hallcenter@kuedu or call (785) 864-7822