BRICS Mathematics: Provincializing Modern Mathematics INI event

Schedule

The outline schedule and room information are also available on the Modern History of Mathematics programme calendar at the Isaac Newton Institute website.

Please contact Michael for the zoom link if you wish to join remotely.

All times are UK (British Summer Time)

Tuesday 15 April

9:15-9:30 Welcome.

Some questions about mostly taken-for-granted aspects of the countries and regions of interest that we will ask in every session include:

What have been the principal institutions, organisations, sites, and structures of mathematics there? Where has mathematics been published and how has it been shared? Who has funded and supported mathematics?
What regional connections and influences have been important to the local mathematical scene? What farther-distant connections and influences?
What major political, economic, and cultural events and developments have affected mathematicians’ contexts and work?
What research fields have been emphasized in what places? How have ‘pure’ or ‘applied’ or ’engineering’ or ‘mathematical physics’ or ‘computing’ or other divisions of mathematical research looked and operated?

9:30-11:00 Methods for the Margins.

Discussion moderated by J.P. Ascher introducing some methodological and historiographical provocations to consider across the event.

We will consider methods that have been effective at decentering the North Atlantic emphases of the historiography of modern science (including mathematics) and of investigating and understanding interconnected local and global histories of science and mathematics from perspectives that tend to be marginal or omitted in conventional historiography. Questions about evidence, methodology, framing, and the implications of history and historiography will carry through the two days.

11:15-12:15 Outsiders, diasporas, migrants, voyagers, connectors.

Short interventions and discussions from in-person and online contributors.

We will consider people, communities, interactions, and itineraries that do not fit in the BRICS framing of the subsequent sessions, or that raise challenges about the relationships between individual, national, international, and transnational dynamics of mathematics.

13:30-15:00 South Africa, Pan-Africa.

Short interventions and discussions from in-person and online contributors.

We will discuss the history and (national, regional, continental, global) contexts of modern mathematics in South Africa together with the historical framing of the African continent as a location for modern mathematics and mathematicians.

15:30-17:00 Brazil, South America.

Short interventions and discussions from in-person and online contributors.

Focusing on Brazil, we will discuss the history of institutions and connections, national and international, of modern mathematics in South America, including the significant recent historiography of modern mathematics from scholars based in Brazil and working with Brazilian sources.

Wednesday 16 April

9:00-10:30 China, East and Southeast Asia.: Short interventions and discussions from in-person and online contributors.; We will consider China as a major and distinctive node of modern mathematics, looking both externally to regional and global connections as well as to the internal dynamics and variations within the country, as well as how the recent and long-term history of mathematics in and around China have figured in understanding China’s place in the mathematical world.
10:45-12:15 India, South Asia.: Short interventions and discussions from in-person and online contributors.; We will examine India as a significant and variegated node of modern mathematical research, characterised by unique networked institutions such as the ISI, IIT, and TIFR, as well as migration and international connections. As with China, we will discuss the recent and long-term historiography of mathematics in South Asia as a dynamic element of this recent history.
13:30-15:00 Russia, USSR, (historical and former) Soviet Bloc: Short interventions and discussions from in-person and online contributors.; We will discuss Russia, the USSR, and the historical Soviet Bloc and their historiography as in some ways part of the hegemonic North Atlantic historiography of modern mathematics and in some ways cutting against it, considering in particular how our understanding of this history might change with different emphases and perspectives. We will also consider dynamics within the Soviet Bloc and its successor nations as a challenge for provincializing modern mathematics.
15:30-17:00 Closing discussion.: Everyone is invited to reflect on lessons, connections, contrasts, and questions raised over the two days of discussions.

Notes and Resources

Notes from the discussions, bibliographies, and further resources will be posted here following the event.