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A Conversation on Professional Norms in Mathematics
The articles in this volume grew out of a 2019 workshop, held at Johns Hopkins University, that was inspired by a belief that when mathematicians take time to reflect on the social forces involved in the production of mathematics, actionable insights result. Topics range from mechanisms that lead to an inclusion-exclusion dichotomy within mathematics to common pitfalls and better alternatives to how mathematicians approach teaching, mentoring and communicating mathematical ideas. This collection will be of interest to students, faculty and administrators wishing to gain a snapshot of the current state of professional norms within mathematics and possible steps toward improvements.
138 pages, Paperback
Published October 18, 2021
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September 19, 2022
The feminization of the academy has been a total disaster.
—Amy Wax
As you might expect from such a book, it rapidly turns into unintentional comedy. One especially striking example is an article titled "Fiber Bundles and Intersectional Feminism" (I'm dead serious). The author starts on a real high:
"The moduli space of genders is neither connected nor equidimensional. It is certainly not the disjoint union of two points. It is also certainly not linear with a canonical well ordering. It is not even fixed in time. So the gender binary is an incorrect model mathematically, as is a linear gender spectrum."
In her introduction, the editor Emily Riehl blames herself for having ignorantly used "linguistic tropes" like “as you learned in kindergarden” or "dismissive" words like “obvious” and “trivial” in the classroom. she concludes, "our authors were left with an impossible task of writing something that was both timeless and timely, relevant to our present and future mathematical colleagues who might discover their words decades in the future and reflective of the unique moment we all find ourselves in today." Yeah, I'm sure of that.
To help get some perspective on the scale of the disaster, I must add this book is published by the *American Mathematical Society,* not by a mainstream publisher or some woke university press.
—Amy Wax
As you might expect from such a book, it rapidly turns into unintentional comedy. One especially striking example is an article titled "Fiber Bundles and Intersectional Feminism" (I'm dead serious). The author starts on a real high:
"The moduli space of genders is neither connected nor equidimensional. It is certainly not the disjoint union of two points. It is also certainly not linear with a canonical well ordering. It is not even fixed in time. So the gender binary is an incorrect model mathematically, as is a linear gender spectrum."
In her introduction, the editor Emily Riehl blames herself for having ignorantly used "linguistic tropes" like “as you learned in kindergarden” or "dismissive" words like “obvious” and “trivial” in the classroom. she concludes, "our authors were left with an impossible task of writing something that was both timeless and timely, relevant to our present and future mathematical colleagues who might discover their words decades in the future and reflective of the unique moment we all find ourselves in today." Yeah, I'm sure of that.
To help get some perspective on the scale of the disaster, I must add this book is published by the *American Mathematical Society,* not by a mainstream publisher or some woke university press.
Displaying 1 of 1 review