Nina Engelhardt
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781474416238
- eISBN:
- 9781474449656
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474416238.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
The introduction establishes the theoretical grounds for the analysis of mathematics and modernism and situates the book within the critical contexts of modernism and science studies and literature ...
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The introduction establishes the theoretical grounds for the analysis of mathematics and modernism and situates the book within the critical contexts of modernism and science studies and literature and science studies. It sets out the unique epistemological status of mathematics, key stages in its historical development, and charts the new territory that the book opens up by examining literary engagements with mathematics and modernism. With reference to texts and theories by Herbert Mehrtens, Jeremy Gray, Leo Corry and Moritz Epple, the introduction establishes the concept of modernist mathematics, the role of the so-called ‘foundational crisis of mathematics’, and competing logicist, formalist and intuitionist positions, particularly as represented by David Hilbert and L.E.J. Brower. The introduction also sets out how the issues at stake in mathematics feed into the modernist revaluation of rationality and Enlightenment values and echo the sense of crisis in other areas. A particular focus is on theories that reflect on mathematics as a human construct and deliberately created fiction, including texts by Friedrich Nietzsche, Ernst Cassirer, Oswald Spengler, Hans Vaihinger, Hartry Field and Alain Badiou.Less
The introduction establishes the theoretical grounds for the analysis of mathematics and modernism and situates the book within the critical contexts of modernism and science studies and literature and science studies. It sets out the unique epistemological status of mathematics, key stages in its historical development, and charts the new territory that the book opens up by examining literary engagements with mathematics and modernism. With reference to texts and theories by Herbert Mehrtens, Jeremy Gray, Leo Corry and Moritz Epple, the introduction establishes the concept of modernist mathematics, the role of the so-called ‘foundational crisis of mathematics’, and competing logicist, formalist and intuitionist positions, particularly as represented by David Hilbert and L.E.J. Brower. The introduction also sets out how the issues at stake in mathematics feed into the modernist revaluation of rationality and Enlightenment values and echo the sense of crisis in other areas. A particular focus is on theories that reflect on mathematics as a human construct and deliberately created fiction, including texts by Friedrich Nietzsche, Ernst Cassirer, Oswald Spengler, Hans Vaihinger, Hartry Field and Alain Badiou.
Nina Engelhardt
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781474416238
- eISBN:
- 9781474449656
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474416238.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Modernism in mathematics – this unusual notion turns out to provide new perspectives on central questions in and beyond literary modernism. This books draws on prose texts by mathematicians and on ...
More
Modernism in mathematics – this unusual notion turns out to provide new perspectives on central questions in and beyond literary modernism. This books draws on prose texts by mathematicians and on historical and cultural studies of mathematics to introduce the so-called ‘foundational crisis of mathematics’ in the early twentieth century, and it analyses major novels that employ developments in mathematics as exemplary of wider modernist movements. The monograph focuses on Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day (2006) and Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), Hermann Broch’s novel trilogy The Sleepwalkers (1930-32), and Robert Musil’s The Man without Qualities (1930/32). These novels accord mathematics and its modernist transformation a central place in their visions and present it as interrelated with political, linguistic, epistemological and ethical developments in the modern West. Not least, the texts explore the freedoms and opportunities that the mathematical crisis implies and relate the emerging notion of ‘fictional’ characteristics of mathematics to the possibilities of literature. By exploring how the novels accord mathematics a central role as a particularly telling indicator of modernist transformations, this book argues that imaginative works contribute to establishing mathematics as part of modernist culture. The monograph thus opens up new frames of textual and cultural analysis that help understand the modernist condition from the interdisciplinary perspective of literature and mathematics studies, and it demonstrates the necessity to account for the specificity of mathematics in the field of literature and science studies.Less
Modernism in mathematics – this unusual notion turns out to provide new perspectives on central questions in and beyond literary modernism. This books draws on prose texts by mathematicians and on historical and cultural studies of mathematics to introduce the so-called ‘foundational crisis of mathematics’ in the early twentieth century, and it analyses major novels that employ developments in mathematics as exemplary of wider modernist movements. The monograph focuses on Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day (2006) and Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), Hermann Broch’s novel trilogy The Sleepwalkers (1930-32), and Robert Musil’s The Man without Qualities (1930/32). These novels accord mathematics and its modernist transformation a central place in their visions and present it as interrelated with political, linguistic, epistemological and ethical developments in the modern West. Not least, the texts explore the freedoms and opportunities that the mathematical crisis implies and relate the emerging notion of ‘fictional’ characteristics of mathematics to the possibilities of literature. By exploring how the novels accord mathematics a central role as a particularly telling indicator of modernist transformations, this book argues that imaginative works contribute to establishing mathematics as part of modernist culture. The monograph thus opens up new frames of textual and cultural analysis that help understand the modernist condition from the interdisciplinary perspective of literature and mathematics studies, and it demonstrates the necessity to account for the specificity of mathematics in the field of literature and science studies.
Matthew Taunton
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198817710
- eISBN:
- 9780191859175
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198817710.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature, World Literature
The Bolshevik Revolution induced British writers to rethink the politics of number, and this chapter considers the significance of the marked preponderance of numbers, equations, and arithmetic in ...
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The Bolshevik Revolution induced British writers to rethink the politics of number, and this chapter considers the significance of the marked preponderance of numbers, equations, and arithmetic in discussions of the Russian Revolution and the Soviet State. It explores the obsessive use of statistics by the Soviet Union and its British defenders, as a utilitarian form of socialism came to dominate left-wing discussions of politics. The chapter theorizes a ‘Romantic anti-Communism’ that opposed itself to such calculations, and often to the principle of quantitative equality. The chapter also explores—partly via the equation ‘two and two make five’ (featured Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, but also in other texts that mediate the relationship between Russian and British socialism)—how the seemingly timeless propositions of mathematics were up for grabs in the debates around Marxist science and dialectical materialism. Writers covered include Orwell, Arthur Koestler, and Bertrand Russell.Less
The Bolshevik Revolution induced British writers to rethink the politics of number, and this chapter considers the significance of the marked preponderance of numbers, equations, and arithmetic in discussions of the Russian Revolution and the Soviet State. It explores the obsessive use of statistics by the Soviet Union and its British defenders, as a utilitarian form of socialism came to dominate left-wing discussions of politics. The chapter theorizes a ‘Romantic anti-Communism’ that opposed itself to such calculations, and often to the principle of quantitative equality. The chapter also explores—partly via the equation ‘two and two make five’ (featured Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, but also in other texts that mediate the relationship between Russian and British socialism)—how the seemingly timeless propositions of mathematics were up for grabs in the debates around Marxist science and dialectical materialism. Writers covered include Orwell, Arthur Koestler, and Bertrand Russell.
Nina Engelhardt
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781474416238
- eISBN:
- 9781474449656
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474416238.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
The conclusion summarises the varying ways in which the modernist and postmodernist fictions discussed in this book inform the notion of mathematical modernism. Based on the results of the study, the ...
More
The conclusion summarises the varying ways in which the modernist and postmodernist fictions discussed in this book inform the notion of mathematical modernism. Based on the results of the study, the conclusion again argues for the need to account for the unique status of mathematics in the spectrum of the disciplines, particularly when the specific characteristics of mathematics gain attention with its modernist transformation. At the same time, mathematics becomes a necessary and fruitful concern of modernist studies, providing new insights on the roles of reason and imaginary concepts, as well as on modernist experimentation with literary form. This book’s examination of literary engagements with mathematics leads to questioning interpretations of modernism as mainly focused on negative aspects of modernisation and instrumental rationality. Fictions written in and about the period, as well as mathematical prose texts of the time, reconsider the foundations of reason and rediscover neglected aspects of rational domains, including, counter-intuitively, non-rational and imaginary dimensions. The conclusion emphasises that examining the place of mathematics leads to a more nuanced understanding of modernism’s complex engagement with its roots in the Enlightenment and its reassessment in postmodernism.Less
The conclusion summarises the varying ways in which the modernist and postmodernist fictions discussed in this book inform the notion of mathematical modernism. Based on the results of the study, the conclusion again argues for the need to account for the unique status of mathematics in the spectrum of the disciplines, particularly when the specific characteristics of mathematics gain attention with its modernist transformation. At the same time, mathematics becomes a necessary and fruitful concern of modernist studies, providing new insights on the roles of reason and imaginary concepts, as well as on modernist experimentation with literary form. This book’s examination of literary engagements with mathematics leads to questioning interpretations of modernism as mainly focused on negative aspects of modernisation and instrumental rationality. Fictions written in and about the period, as well as mathematical prose texts of the time, reconsider the foundations of reason and rediscover neglected aspects of rational domains, including, counter-intuitively, non-rational and imaginary dimensions. The conclusion emphasises that examining the place of mathematics leads to a more nuanced understanding of modernism’s complex engagement with its roots in the Enlightenment and its reassessment in postmodernism.
B. R. Nanda
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195647518
- eISBN:
- 9780199081400
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195647518.003.0007
- Subject:
- Political Science, Indian Politics
This chapter focuses on Gokhale’s career at Fergusson College, where he taught English literature and mathematics. The study of mathematics was a useful discipline for Gokhale; it gave a statistical ...
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This chapter focuses on Gokhale’s career at Fergusson College, where he taught English literature and mathematics. The study of mathematics was a useful discipline for Gokhale; it gave a statistical bias to his study of economic and financial problems, and lent clarity and trenchancy to his criticisms of official policies. The close reasoning and the great precision, which were to characterize his writings and speeches on economic matters, may have owed something to his training in mathematics in his youth. Gokhale was an exceedingly conscientious teacher. He was well liked by his students, who found him accessible and helpful. They were also spellbound by his clear and eloquent exposition in the classroom.Less
This chapter focuses on Gokhale’s career at Fergusson College, where he taught English literature and mathematics. The study of mathematics was a useful discipline for Gokhale; it gave a statistical bias to his study of economic and financial problems, and lent clarity and trenchancy to his criticisms of official policies. The close reasoning and the great precision, which were to characterize his writings and speeches on economic matters, may have owed something to his training in mathematics in his youth. Gokhale was an exceedingly conscientious teacher. He was well liked by his students, who found him accessible and helpful. They were also spellbound by his clear and eloquent exposition in the classroom.
Mark Blacklock
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198755487
- eISBN:
- 9780191816680
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198755487.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
The idea of the fourth dimension of space has been of sustained interest to nineteenth-century and Modernist studies since the publication of Linda Dalrymple Henderson’s The Fourth Dimension and ...
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The idea of the fourth dimension of space has been of sustained interest to nineteenth-century and Modernist studies since the publication of Linda Dalrymple Henderson’s The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art (1983). An idea from mathematics that was appropriated by occultist thought, it emerged in the fin de siècle as a staple of genre fiction and grew to become an informing idea for a number of important Modernist writers and artists. Describing the post-Euclidean intellectual landscape of the late nineteenth century, The Emergence of the Fourth Dimension works with the concepts derived from the mathematical possibilities of n-dimensional geometry—co-presence, bi-location, and interpenetration; the experiences of two consciousnesses sharing the same space, one consciousness being in two spaces, and objects and consciousness pervading each other—to examine how a crucially transformative idea in the cultural history of space was thought and to consider the forms in which such thought was anchored. It identifies a corpus of higher-dimensional fictions by Conrad and Ford, H.G. Wells, Henry James, H.P. Lovecraft, and others and reads these closely to understand how fin de siècle and early twentieth-century literature shaped and were in turn shaped by the reconfiguration of imaginative space occasioned by the n-dimensional turn. In so doing it traces the intellectual history of higher-dimensional thought into diverse terrains, describing spiritualist experiments and how an extended abstract space functioned as an analogue for global space in occult groupings such as the Theosophical Society.Less
The idea of the fourth dimension of space has been of sustained interest to nineteenth-century and Modernist studies since the publication of Linda Dalrymple Henderson’s The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art (1983). An idea from mathematics that was appropriated by occultist thought, it emerged in the fin de siècle as a staple of genre fiction and grew to become an informing idea for a number of important Modernist writers and artists. Describing the post-Euclidean intellectual landscape of the late nineteenth century, The Emergence of the Fourth Dimension works with the concepts derived from the mathematical possibilities of n-dimensional geometry—co-presence, bi-location, and interpenetration; the experiences of two consciousnesses sharing the same space, one consciousness being in two spaces, and objects and consciousness pervading each other—to examine how a crucially transformative idea in the cultural history of space was thought and to consider the forms in which such thought was anchored. It identifies a corpus of higher-dimensional fictions by Conrad and Ford, H.G. Wells, Henry James, H.P. Lovecraft, and others and reads these closely to understand how fin de siècle and early twentieth-century literature shaped and were in turn shaped by the reconfiguration of imaginative space occasioned by the n-dimensional turn. In so doing it traces the intellectual history of higher-dimensional thought into diverse terrains, describing spiritualist experiments and how an extended abstract space functioned as an analogue for global space in occult groupings such as the Theosophical Society.
