Abstract / Synopsis
Mathematicians in popular culture are often depicted as people obsessed by their studies but with little connection to society, poor social skills, mental issues and narrow interests, and more generally a dull life. Adding to these explicit stereotypes, subtler and more implicit ones also abound, regarding mathematicians’ gender, ethnicity, age; they are all supposed to be white middle-aged men. In this paper I describe a project aimed at disrupting such stereotypes that culminated in a book containing short comics and biographies of twentieth-century mathematicians that were, with respect to the perceived image of mathematicians, against the tide.
Recommended Citation
Nicola Ciccoli, "Mathematicians Against the Tide," Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, Volume 16 Issue 2 (July 2026), pages 230-244. . Available at: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/jhm/vol16/iss2/13
