Kenneth (Ken) Valente
Contact
kvalente@colgate.eduWhen I came to Hamilton in 1987, after completing a two-year National Science Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of California at Berkeley, I had a limited understanding of small liberal arts institutions. Since then, however, my experiences have mirrored the kind of intellectual transformations that we constantly seek to engender at ²Ø¾«¸ó through our curriculum and commitments.
The early part of my research career was dedicated to pure mathematics, with a particular interest in algebraic structures. As time went on, however, and through my involvement in the CORE curriculum and off-campus study, my horizons began to expand. In particular, time spent at the University of Manchester in England put me in contact with scholars in the history of science and technology. Against the backdrop of the world’s first industrial city, I started to ask and explore questions regarding mathematical innovations that emerged in the nineteenth century. Since then I’ve become particularly interested in the ways that developments related to higher dimensional spaces, non-Euclidean geometry, and the mathematization of the infinite were disseminated and discussed among lay (or non-specialist) audiences. This interest has underpinned a broad body of work that encompasses the history of mathematics, science, and ideas in the period 1870 – 1920. It has also provided me with opportunities to employ feminist and queer analytics in an attempt to understand better how knowledge is made and remade.
I didn’t anticipate undertaking such a departure from pure mathematics when I came to ²Ø¾«¸ó. Moreover, I don’t know that I could have done so elsewhere or without the encouragement of many gifted and generous colleagues. To my mind, providing a nurturing place for transformation is one of ²Ø¾«¸ó’s greatest features.