Resources
A page for collecting useful resources. Many of these are articles we have discussed in the monthly reading group, presentations by network members, or suggestions from network members. If you would like to suggest a resource please do so on the JISCmail list (Sign up).
Slides from the Diversity and Decolonisation in Mathematics Conference 2026 at Warwick University
Slides from the Diversity and Decolonisation in Mathematics Conference 2025 at Warwick University
Rowena Ball, ‘Empirical Mathematics in Australian Indigenous Smoke Telegraphy’ Preprint | Recording of seminar | Slides
Abah, Joshua Abah, ‘Viewing Basic Math through the Lens of History: Undergraduates’ Reflective Learning in a History-Augmented Mathematics Classroom’, Waikato Journal of Education, 22.4 (2017), doi:10.15663/wje.v22i4.557 (see blog post)
Boucard, Jenny. “Arithmetic and Memorial Practices by and Around Sophie Germain in the 19th Century.” In Against All Odds: Women’s Ways to Mathematical Research Since 1800, edited by Eva Kaufholz-Soldat and Nicola M.R. Oswald, 185–230. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47610-6_7. (in https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-3-030-47610-6.pdf )
Kennedy-Shaffer, Lee, ‘Teaching the Difficult Past of Statistics to Improve the Future’, Journal of Statistics and Data Science Education, 32.1 (2024), pp. 108–19, doi:10.1080/26939169.2023.2224407
A selection of quizes:
- https://www.funtrivia.com/trivia-quiz/People/Emmy-Noether-407107.html
- https://www.funtrivia.com/trivia-quiz/People/Women-Are-Mathematicians-Too-190009.html
- https://www.sporcle.com/games/CaiustheTall/mathematics-through-history
- https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://mualphatheta.org/sites/default/files/convention_past_tests/Open-History_of_Mathematics-test-answers.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjMkbf_nJ6RAxVVRUEAHUHUH8s4ChAWegQIFRAB&usg=AOvVaw2LFy3Ne4Fnlxmp9hK1q4qz
- https://studentsgkquiz.blogspot.com/2016/12/mathematics-quiz-1-general-quiz-on.html
- This last one has only one question, but extended reflections on the answer:
- https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://sites.exeter.ac.uk/pmej/wp-content/uploads/sites/569/2024/12/Brian-Greer-A-Short-Test-on-the-History-of-Mathematics.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi8nbT3o56RAxWyT0EAHSx0KsE4HhAWegQIJRAB&usg=AOvVaw3YLaCzA78vow8_mX4FPlCJ
Video: “Zero Is a Hero.” Gresham College Lecture by John D. Barrow https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/zero-hero.
Nothaft, C. P. E. (2020). Medieval Europe’s satanic ciphers: on the genesis of a modern myth. British Journal for the History of Mathematics., 35(2), 107–136. https://doi.org/10.1080/26375451.2020.1726050
Dorce, Carlos. “History of Mathematics (and Mathematics) with Gender Perspective: Towards a Social History of Mathematics.” International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology 0, no. 0: 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020739X.2023.2236136
D’Ambrosio, Uboratan, Ethnomathematics and its Place in the History and Pedagogy of Mathematics https://www.jstor.org/stable/40247876
Larvor, Brendan, and Karen Francois. “The Concept of Culture in Critical Mathematics Education.” In The Philosophy of Mathematics Education Today, 173–85. Springer Nature Link, 2018. https://researchprofiles.herts.ac.uk/en/publications/the-concept-of-culture-in-critical-mathematics-education
Ascher, Marcia. “CHAPTER 1. The Logic of Divination.” In Mathematics Elsewhere: An Exploration of Ideas Across Cultures, 5–38. Princeton University Press, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691187648-003.
“Mechanical Numeracy: Thinking with the Soroban Abacus in Modern Japan.” 2025. https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/an/5555/01/10689568/20tjcM1lYOc.
Victorian debates on the higher education of women (statistics):
- Section 10.4 of Govoni, Paola. “Hearsay, Not-So-Big Data and Choice: Understanding Science and Maths Through the Lives of Men Who Supported Women,” 281–314, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47610-6_10. (in https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-3-030-47610-6.pdf )
- Dewey, John (1885). Education and the Health of Women. In: Science 6, 141 (Oct. 16, 1885), 341–342 https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/science.ns-6.141S.341
- P91 “Conclusion” of Sidgwick, Elinor (1890), ‘Health statistics of women students of Cambridge and Oxford and of their sisters’ https://archive.org/details/b28080804/page/90/mode/2up
Brasseur, Lee. “Florence Nightingale’s Visual Rhetoric in the Rose Diagrams.” Technical Communication Quarterly, November 20, 2009. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15427625tcq1402_3.
pages 4-27 of Chemla, Karine, and Evelyn Fox Keller, eds. “Changing Mathematical Cultures, Conceptual History, and the Circulation of Knowledge.” in K Chemla and E Fox Keller (eds) Cultures without Culturalism De Gruyter: Duke University Press, 2017. https://www-degruyter-com.ezproxy.st-andrews.ac.uk/document/doi/10.1515/9780822373094-016/html
Wagner, Roi. “The Ethical Charge of Articulating Mathematics.” Global Philosophy 33, no. 4 (June 19, 2023): 35. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-023-09686-y.
Owens, Kay, and Charly Muke. “Revising the History of Number: How Ethnomathematics Transforms Perspectives on Indigenous Cultures.” REVEMOP 2, no. e202007 (March 4, 2020): 1–19.https://researchoutput.csu.edu.au/en/publications/revising-the-history-of-number-how-ethnomathematics-transforms-pe, For an example of how one might use this article with undergraduates, see section 4 Exercises: Analysis, 1. Topic: Analysis, on p15 of: Chiodo, Maurice, and Dennis Müller. “Teaching Resources for Embedding Ethics in Mathematics: Exercises, Projects, and Handouts.” arXiv, October 12, 2023. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2310.08467.
Clark, Kathleen Michelle, Cihan Can, Janet Heine Barnett, Mark Watford, and Oksana Melissa Rubis. “Tales of Research Initiatives on University-Level Mathematics and Primary Historical Sources.” ZDM – Mathematics Education 54, no. 7 (December 1, 2022): 1507–20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-022-01382-2.
Origin Stories: Plantations, Computers, and Industrial Control, Meredith Whittaker https://logicmag.io/supa-dupa-skies/origin-stories-plantations-computers-and-industrial-control/
Sindiso M. Nleya & Siqabukile Ndlovu, ‘Audit of Mathematical Concepts in Pre-colonial Africa’ in Hlabangane, Nokuthula, and Artwell Nhemachena. Decolonising Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in an Age of Technocolonialism: Recentring African Indigenous Knowledge and Belief Systems. Langaa RPCIG, 2020. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/358/edited_volume/book/74875.
Plofker, Kim. “The ‘Error’ in the Indian ‘Taylor Series Approximation’ to the Sine.” Historia Mathematica 28, no. 4 (November 1, 2001): 283–95. https://doi.org/10.1006/hmat.2001.2331.
Li, Wenlin. “On the Algorithmic Tradition in the History of Mathematics.” In A Delicate Balance: Global Perspectives on Innovation and Tradition in the History of Mathematics: edited by David E. Rowe and Wann-Sheng Horng, 321–41. 2015. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12030-0_14
Sørensen, Henrik Kragh, Kristian Danielsen, and Line Edslev Andersen. “Teaching Reader Engagement as an Aspect of Proof.” ZDM 51, no. 5 (October 1, 2019): 835–44.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-019-01056-6.