Calculative Reasoning: Colonial Tool to Democratic Compulsion

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

• Sayori Ghoshal (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science)
• Tuesday 21 January 2025, 10:15-11:15
• Seminar Room 1, Newton Institute.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact nobody.

MHMW01 - Modern history of mathematics: emerging themes

How do the histories of colonialism and imperialism impact the history of mathematical and statistical reasoning? Although histories of science have accounted for the problems of scientific knowledge within colonial contexts, histories of mathematics and statistics have yet to engage more critically with imperialism, colonialism, postcolonialism, nationalism, and democracy. Using examples from my research on the history of statistics in modern India, I will reflect on how such big picture analyses, of the intersectional relation between calculative reasoning and geopolitics, can show us: 1) how the history of mathematics and statistics remain embedded in state politics and political thought, 2) how calculative reasoning informs political structures, and 3) how the history of such disciplines has multiple origins and trajectories much like other sciences. This talk will thus reflect on possible ways of bridging the gap between history of science, history of politics, and the history of mathematics and statistics.

This talk is part of the Isaac Newton Institute Seminar Series series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• All CMS events
• Featured lists
• INI info aggregator
• Isaac Newton Institute Seminar Series
• School of Physical Sciences
• Seminar Room 1, Newton Institute
• bld31

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.