Produktdetaljer
Biographical note
G. Mitchell Reyes is Professor of Rhetoric and Media Studies at Lewis and Clark College. He is coeditor of Global Memoryscapes: Contesting Remembrance in a Transnational Age and Arguing with Numbers: The Intersections of Rhetoric and Mathematics, the latter also published by Penn State University Press.
<p>“Offering a translative resource for the chaos of that bonding and severing, strengthening and weakening, weaving and unraveling, <i>The Evolution of Mathematics</i> leaves no doubt that both dire consequences and dynamic possibilities are at stake in rhetoric’s ongoing confrontation and engagement with the mathematical realities of the world.”</p><p>—Crystal Broch Colombini <i>The Quarterly Journal of Speech</i></p>
<p>“Certainly, one of the most incisive books published in 2022.”</p><p>—Cliff Cunningham <i>Sun News Austin</i></p>
<p>“Reyes’s knowledge of and engagement with mathematics are breathtaking in scope. <i>The Evolution of Mathematics</i> is rhetorically engaging as it winds its way through the rabbit hole of mathematical philosophy, history, and technological innovation. Mathematicians will learn about the stakes of their invention and translation practices while rhetoricians will find yet another plane within which rhetoric functions and can be engaged and assessed.”</p><p>—Catherine Chaput, author of <i>Inside the Teaching Machine: Rhetoric and the Globalization of the U.S. Public Research University</i></p>
There is a growing awareness among researchers in the humanities and social sciences of the rhetorical force of mathematical discourse—whether in regard to gerrymandering, facial recognition technologies, or racial biases in algorithmic automation. This book proposes a novel way to engage with and understand mathematics via a theoretical framework that highlights how math transforms the social-material world.
In this study, G. Mitchell Reyes applies contemporary rhetorical analysis to mathematical discourse, calling into question the commonly held view that math equals truth. Examining mathematics in historical context, Reyes traces its development from Plato’s teaching about abstract numbers to Euclidian geometry and the emergence of calculus and infinitesimals, imaginary numbers, and algorithms. This history reveals that mathematical innovation has always relied on rhetorical practices of making meaning, such as analogy, metaphor, and invention. Far from expressing truth hidden deep in reality, mathematics is dynamic and evolving, shaping reality and our experience of it.
By bringing mathematics back down to the material-social world, Reyes makes it possible for scholars of the rhetoric and sociology of science, technology, and math to collaborate with mathematicians themselves in order to better understand our material world and public culture.
Whether in regard to gerrymandering, facial recognition technologies, or racial biases in algorithmic automation, recognizing the rhetorical force of mathematical discourse requires us to rethink how math and rhetoric are connected.
Aids and encourages collaboration among and between mathematicians and scholars of the rhetoric and sociology of science, technology, and math.
Reveals that mathematical innovation relies on decidedly human practices of meaning making in a material world.
The RSA Series in Transdisciplinary Rhetoric (STR) publishes books that move between rhetoric and other emerging or established disciplines, taking seriously both what makes them strange to one another and how they can be brought together to build space for new conversations, shed light on overlooked areas of inquiry, or even create new ways of doing scholarship. Books in the series speak not only to the disciplines in which rhetoric finds a comfortable home but also to disciplines that are less familiar with it, recognizing that rhetoric will itself be changed—methodologically, conceptually, substantively—in any such transdisciplinary relationship. We’re looking for projects whose case studies stem from disciplines beyond rhetoric, projects that stake out new theoretical ground, and/or projects that grapple with the unfamiliar, odd, or uncommon. Such transdisciplinary exchanges include, but are not limited to, rhetoric and: science, technology, or mathematics; the law or legal studies; digital or visual culture; health and medicine; disability studies; Indigenous studies; economics; environmental studies; gender studies; and religion. We also welcome work that foregrounds transnational perspectives, decolonial approaches, and/or queer of color critique.
Books in the series are well written and accessible to a broad range of students and scholars in rhetoric and other fields. They should be innovative and rigorously argued, combining theoretical sophistication with smart case analysis.
Produktdetaljer
Biographical note
G. Mitchell Reyes is Professor of Rhetoric and Media Studies at Lewis and Clark College. He is coeditor of Global Memoryscapes: Contesting Remembrance in a Transnational Age and Arguing with Numbers: The Intersections of Rhetoric and Mathematics, the latter also published by Penn State University Press.