{"id":4451,"date":"2019-05-31T07:00:27","date_gmt":"2019-05-31T11:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/?p=4451"},"modified":"2019-05-31T03:26:20","modified_gmt":"2019-05-31T07:26:20","slug":"inclusive-math-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/2019\/05\/31\/inclusive-math-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Inclusive Math History"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/files\/2019\/05\/256px-Timeless_Books.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4463 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/files\/2019\/05\/256px-Timeless_Books.jpg?resize=256%2C167\" alt=\"Pile of old books\" width=\"256\" height=\"167\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/extremefriday\/status\/1125237676465106944\">Anna announced on Twitter<\/a> &#8220;It&#8217;s finally happened, I got tapped to teach History of Math. Since I cover so much of the euro white guy stuff in number theory, I want to do a People&#8217;s History of Math. Who must I include? I want some ladies! I want some Asia\/Africa\/S.America! (And don&#8217;t tell me Emmy Noether.)&#8221; To date, her post has gotten 189 replies, many of which include resource recommendations and other ideas. Here is a collection of resources (both from that thread and from elsewhere) for folks who are curious about the subject or perhaps even interested in developing their own take on &#8220;a People&#8217;s History of Math.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/inclusionexclusion\/2018\/05\/29\/toward-humanizing-undergraduate-mathematics-education-a-re-imagining-through-historical-perspectives-in-mathematics\/\">&#8220;Toward humanizing undergraduate mathematics education: A re-imagining through historical perspectives in mathematics&#8221;<\/a> by Luis A. Leyva.<\/p>\n<p>Leyva wrote this post on the AMS <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/inclusionexclusion\/\">inclusion\/exclusion blog<\/a>. He wrote that his post was inspired by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coastal.edu\/academics\/facultyprofiles\/universitycollege\/sarahottinger\/\">Sara Hottinger<\/a>\u2019s book,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sunypress.edu\/p-6186-inventing-the-mathematician.aspx\"><em>Inventing the Mathematician: Gender, Race, and Our Cultural Understanding of Mathematics.\u00a0<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Leyva&#8217;s post summarizes &#8220;Hottinger\u2019s distinction between <em>internalist\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0<em>externalist\u00a0<\/em>historical accounts and their respective influences on the construction of mathematical subjectivities. This is followed by a discussion of how Hottinger\u2019s insights can be applied to re-thinking pedagogical practices in undergraduate education that challenge traditional representations of mathematics as void of sociohistorical contexts and personhood,&#8221; he wrote. It also includes references to other related works.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Biographies<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk\/BiogIndex.html\">This list of mathematician biographies<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk\/Indexes\/Women.html\">this sublist of women mathematician biographies<\/a> (both maintained by the University of St. Andrews, Scotland) were recommended by <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DynamicsSIAM\">@DynamicsSIAM.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Consider incorporating primary sources<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In the Twitter thread, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/evelynjlamb\">Evelyn Lamb<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/evelynjlamb\/status\/1125258384335237120\">recommended<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.springer.com\/us\/book\/9780387984346\">Mathematical Expeditions <\/a>by Reinhard Laubenbacher and David Pengelley, particularly for the chapter on Fermat&#8217;s Last Theorem, which &#8220;has an excellent section on Germain&#8217;s work on the problem,&#8221; she wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Later in the thread, she <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/evelynjlamb\/status\/1125264519519846400\">wrote<\/a> &#8220;Back to primary source point, I think college math Ss are used to seeing ideas after they&#8217;ve been very well-digested. Getting them to engage with primary sources really helps them (&amp; us) think about how we know what we know I think college math Ss are used to seeing ideas after they&#8217;ve been very well-digested. Getting them to engage with primary sources really helps them (&amp; us) think about how we know what we know [about the] past.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mikeandallie\">Mike Lawler<\/a> also shared the link to his post <a href=\"https:\/\/mikesmathpage.wordpress.com\/2017\/12\/06\/an-attempt-to-share-some-katherine-johnsons-math-ideas-from-hidden-figures-with-my-son\/\">&#8220;An attempt to share some Katherine Johnson\u2019s math ideas from Hidden Figures with my son&#8221;<\/a> on his Mike&#8217;s Math Page blog.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Some typesetting considerations<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>On his Division by Zero blog, David Richeson <a href=\"https:\/\/divisbyzero.com\/2012\/08\/30\/ancient-number-systems-in-xetex\/\">wrote about<\/a> using XeTeX (rather than LaTeX) to &#8220;typeset Egyptian hieroglyphics, Babylonian cuneiform, and Chinese rod numerals&#8221; for a history of math course he taught.<\/p>\n<p>Have favorite resources on the history of math from diverse perspectives? Feel free to share them with me in the comments or on Twitter <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/writesRCrowell\">@writesRCrowell<\/a>!<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this month, Anna announced on Twitter &#8220;It&#8217;s finally happened, I got tapped to teach History of Math. Since I cover so much of the euro white guy stuff in number theory, I want to do a People&#8217;s History of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/2019\/05\/31\/inclusive-math-history\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" data-url=https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/2019\/05\/31\/inclusive-math-history\/><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":143,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[108,75,76,3,86,1,29],"tags":[971,973,974,672,584,972,969,512,968,970],"class_list":["post-4451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history-of-mathematics","category-issues-in-higher-education","category-k-12-mathematics","category-math-education","category-people-in-math","category-uncategorized","category-women-in-math","tag-biographies","tag-david-richeson","tag-division-by-zero","tag-evelyn-lamb","tag-fermats-last-theorem","tag-inclusion-exclusion-blog","tag-katherine-johnson","tag-mike-lawler","tag-mikes-math-page","tag-sophie-germaine"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3tW3N-19N","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/143"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4451"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4465,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4451\/revisions\/4465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}