School of Social and Political Science

Research interests

History of mathematics, History of science, History of the exact sciences, Sociology of knowledge, Cultural studies of science and technology.

Research Overview

I study the relationship between abstract knowledge and the modern world. Combining historical, sociological, and other methods, I investigate how people produce such knowledge; how it derives from their social, political, and other contexts; and how they use that knowledge to shape those contexts in turn.

This topic has taken me to a wide range of subjects over the years, from dots and diagrams in sixteenth-century books, to mathematical rigor in the wake of the French Revolution, to Victorian anthropologists' attempts to understand the farthest reaches of prehistory by asking how civilizations learn to count, all the way to present-day mathematicians' efforts to collaborate using technologies as grand as the Internet and as mundane as chalk and blackboards. My main current project concerns the globalization of modern mathematics.

For more about my research, please visit my website, http://mbarany.com.

Current Projects

I am working on a variety of projects related to the modern global history of mathematics, as well as mathematical, numerical, and algorithmic thinking in social and historical context. While developing theoretical and critical perspectives on these topics, I am also interested in their implications for education, policy, and public understanding. My research methods include archival history (especially institutional and academic archives), historiography, and close reading of published and archival sources.

Major current externally funded projects include:

Situating International and Global Mathematics (UKRI Frontier Research ERC Guarantee award)

Future Public Understanding of Mathematics (RSE Joint International Projects award with University of Toronto)

PhD Topics

Please be in touch if you would potentially like to work with me as your PhD supervisor! In general terms, you might be interested in working with me if you aim to study any of these topics: history, sociology, and cultural studies of modern mathematical and physical sciences; scientific institutions, internationalism, and globalisation; quantification, abstraction, algorithms, and society; historiography of science and mathematics.

My research postgraduate students are probably enrolled in one of the following:

• PhD in Science and Technology Studies
• MSc (R) Science and Technology Studies