Ann Hibner Koblitz

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Samuel Huntington's election to the National Academy of Sciences would probably have been little more than a formality if it had not been for a graduate student named Ann Koblitz. The dispute that would shake the social sciences to their quantitative foundations, that was featured on the front page of The New York Times, in articles in The New Republic, Science, and Discover, and that would convulse the normally insouciant National Academy of Sciences, can be traced back to a single assignment in a graduate seminar on historical methodology at Boston University in 1977.

Despite the vigorous defense of Huntington by Nobel Prize winning economist Herbert Simon, [5] [6] Lang's campaign was successful, and Huntington was twice voted down by the Academy's members. [7]

In the 1980s and 1990s Koblitz was a critic of the gender essentialism of Evelyn Fox Keller, who maintained that modern science is inherently patriarchal and ill-suited for women. [8] Koblitz argued that Keller failed to appreciate the multi-faceted nature of scientific research and the great diversity of experiences of women across cultures and time periods. [9] For example, in the 19th century the first women to earn advanced university degrees in Europe in any field were almost all in the natural sciences and medicine. [10] In an article about the first 20 years of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM), [11] the mathematician and former AWM president Lenore Blum wrote

In the mid-1980s, there was a flurry of work by a group of feminist theorists on gender and science. In commentary fairly critical of this work, Ann Hibner Koblitz succinctly summarized the main ideas behind the theory: "Put in its most general guise, the new 'gender theory' says that centuries of male domination of science have affected its content – what questions are asked and what answers are found – and that 'science' and 'objectivity' have become inextricably linked to concepts and ideologies of masculinity." She lists eight criticisms of which I will mention only two, namely, that gender theorists "seem unaware of the increasing numbers of women who have had satisfying lives as scientists" and "employ cartoon-character stereotypes of science, scientists, men, and women."

In the 1990s and early 2000s a group of archaeologists, led by Steven A. LeBlanc of Harvard, popularized the notion that warfare was endemic among all prehistoric peoples. [12] [13] [14] Koblitz analyzed the writings of this group, compared them to other sources, [15] [16] and concluded that the claim of pervasive warfare among the ancient Hohokam people of present-day central Arizona is a modern "masculinist narrative" that has little support in the archaeological record. [17] After speaking at the Old Pueblo Archaeology Center near Tucson, Arizona, [18] Koblitz was asked to write a version of her Men and Masculinities article for the Center's Bulletin. In that article she wrote: [19]

On the basis of scant evidence, they have created a story of prehistoric militarism that harmonizes well with early 21st-century U.S. political culture. Whether this warlike image has much bearing on the actual lives and pursuits of indigenous Southwest populations of the 11th through 15th centuries is, however, open to doubt.

Philanthropy

In 1985 Koblitz and her husband Neal established the Kovalevskaia Fund as a nonprofit organization whose purpose is to support and encourage women in developing countries in science, mathematics, engineering, and medicine. [20] It was originally aimed at promoting women in the sciences in Vietnam; it grew out of Ann's work on the history of women and science, her and Neal's experience in the opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War, and their efforts to help promote science in Vietnam afterwards. [21] Grants were at first made solely in Vietnam, but were eventually extended to other developing countries. [21]

Selected works

Books
Selected journal publications

Honors

Related Research Articles

Essentialism is the view that objects have a set of attributes that are necessary to their identity. In early Western thought, Plato's idealism held that all things have such an "essence"—an "idea" or "form". In Categories, Aristotle similarly proposed that all objects have a substance that, as George Lakoff put it, "make the thing what it is, and without which it would be not that kind of thing". The contrary view—non-essentialism—denies the need to posit such an "essence'".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sofya Kovalevskaya</span> Russian mathematician (1850–1891)

Sofya Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya, born Korvin-Krukovskaya, was a Russian mathematician who made noteworthy contributions to analysis, partial differential equations and mechanics. She was a pioneer for women in mathematics around the world – the first woman to obtain a doctorate in mathematics, the first woman appointed to a full professorship in northern Europe and one of the first women to work for a scientific journal as an editor. According to historian of science Ann Hibner Koblitz, Kovalevskaya was "the greatest known woman scientist before the twentieth century".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samuel P. Huntington</span> American political scientist and academic (1927–2008)

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Neal I. Koblitz is a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Washington. He is also an adjunct professor with the Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research at the University of Waterloo. He is the creator of hyperelliptic curve cryptography and the independent co-creator of elliptic curve cryptography.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steven A. LeBlanc</span> American archaeologist (born 1943)

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The AWM-SIAM Sonia Kovalevsky Lecture is an award and lecture series that "highlights significant contributions of women to applied or computational mathematics." The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) created the award and lecture series in 2002; the lecture is normally given each year at the SIAM Annual Meeting. Award winners receive a signed certificate from the AWM and SIAM presidents.

References

  1. ↑ Malkiel, Nancy Weiss (2016). "Keep the Damned Women Out": The Struggle for Coeducation. Princeton University Press. p. 221. ISBN   9780691172996.
  2. ↑ Koblitz, Neal (2007). Random Curves: Journeys of a Mathematician. Springer-Verlag.
  3. ↑ Koblitz, Neal (1981), Steen, Lynn Arthur (ed.), "Mathematics as Propaganda", Mathematics Tomorrow, New York, NY: Springer, pp. 111–120, doi:10.1007/978-1-4613-8127-3_12, ISBN   978-1-4613-8127-3 , retrieved 2022-02-28
  4. ↑ Charles J. Sykes, Profscam: Professors and the Demise of Higher Education, St. Martin's Press, 1988, pp. 208–218.
  5. ↑ Herbert A. Simon, http://digitalcollections.library.cmu.edu/awweb/awarchive?type=file&item=55849 Archived 2018-03-24 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ↑ Herbert A. Simon, "Unclad emperors: A case of mistaken identity," The Mathematical Intelligencer, vol. 10, no. 1 (1988), pp. 11–14.
  7. ↑ J. Jorgenson and S. G. Krantz, "Serge Lang, 1927-2005", Notices of the American Mathematical Society, vol. 53, no. 5, 2005, pp. 536-553, https://www.ams.org/notices/200605/fea-lang.pdf
  8. ↑ Evelyn Fox Keller, Reflections on Gender and Science, Yale University Press, 1985.
  9. ↑ Ann Hibner Koblitz, "A historian looks at gender and science," International Journal of Science Education, vol. 9 (1987), pp. 399–407.
  10. ↑ Ann Hibner Koblitz, Science, Women and Revolution in Russia, Routledge, 2000.
  11. ↑ Lenore Blum, "AWM's first twenty years: The presidents' perspectives," in Bettye Anne Case and Anne M. Leggett, eds., Complexities: Women in Mathematics , Princeton University Press, 2005, pp. 80–98.
  12. ↑ Steven A. LeBlanc, "Prehistory of warfare," Archaeology, vol. 56, no. 3 (May–June 2003), pp. 18–25.
  13. ↑ Steven A. LeBlanc, Prehistoric Warfare in the American Southwest, University of Utah Press, 1999.
  14. ↑ Steven A. LeBlanc and Glen Rice, eds., Deadly Landscapes: Case Studies in Prehistoric Southwestern Warfare, University of Utah Press, 2001.
  15. ↑ Paul R. Fish and Suzanne K. Fish, "Hohokam warfare from a regional perspective," in Diana Claire Tkaczuk and Brian C. Vivian, eds., Cultures in Conflict: Current Archaeological Perspectives, Archaeological Association of the University of Calgary, 1989, pp. 112–129.
  16. ↑ Todd W. Bostwick, "Look to the sky: Another view of hilltop sites in central Arizona," in John R. Welch and Todd W. Bostwick, eds., The Archaeology of Ancient Tactical Sites, Arizona Archaeological Council, 2001, pp. 37–53.
  17. ↑ Ann Hibner Koblitz, "Male bonding around the campfire: Constructing myths of Hohokam militarism," Men and Masculinities, Vol. 9 (2006), pp. 95–107.
  18. ↑ "March is Archaeology Awareness Month! Old Pueblo Archaeology Center Events," Old Pueblo Archaeology, No. 52 (March 2008), p. 9.
  19. ↑ Ann Hibner Koblitz, "Warriors, campfires, and a big stick: Modern male fantasies of Hohokam militarism," Old Pueblo Archaeology, No. 53 (June 2008), pp. 2–5.
  20. ↑ Koblitz, Ann Hibner; Koblitz, Neal (12 January 2009). "The Kovalevskaia Fund". The Mathematical Intelligencer. 22 (2): 62–65. doi:10.1007/BF03025378. S2CID   119749128.
  21. 1 2 Tucker, William H. (2015). Princeton Radicals of the 1960s, Then and Now. McFarland. ISBN   9781476663012.
  22. ↑ Kozlov, Alex (1984). "Book Review: The remarkable story of Sofia Kovalevskaia, the first woman to become a mathematician". SIAM News. 17 (2): 6. Koblitz describes Kovalevskaia's life and work in the context of her political and cultural environment. Kovalevskaia's achievements thus become understood as fruits of a conscious social and intellectual movement, and as a source of inspiration for many, rather than as the extraordinary accomplishments of one isolated individual.
  23. ↑ Vucinich, Alexander (March 2002). "Book review: Ann Hibner Koblitz. Science, Women, and Revolution in Russia". Isis. 93 (1): 154–155. doi:10.1086/343330. This book is welcome as the first solid effort to draw a general picture of the multiple ramifications of the ascent of Russian women to professional positions in science. It also contributes to a better understanding of the growing movement in favor of broader participation by women in the full spectrum of professional activities.
  24. 1 2 "IHR Book Award 2015". Institute for Humanities Research. Archived from the original on 24 March 2018. Retrieved 23 March 2018. Dr. Ann Hibner Koblitz's groundbreaking book, Sex and Herbs and Birth Control takes the reader on a journey across time and space, investigating the always innovative (and occasionally) surprising approaches to women's health from India to Cuba. Dr. Koblitz covers topics such as forensic pathology, the meaning of abortion, and Margaret Sanger, all the while proffering a fresh, insightful take on an age old dilemma. Dr. Koblitz's book is a wonderful example of truly transdisciplinary research and the amazing results of breaking down rigid disciplinary borders.
  25. ↑ Mathematics and the Historian's Craft: The Kenneth O. May Lectures, Springer-Verlag, 2005.
  26. ↑ "The Margaret W. Rossiter History of Women in Science Prize – History of Science Society". hssonline.org. Retrieved 23 March 2018.
  27. ↑ "30 April 1999". www.public.asu.edu. Retrieved 23 March 2018.
  28. ↑ "Outstanding female scientists honoured". Archived from the original on 24 March 2018. Retrieved 23 March 2018.
Ann Hibner Koblitz
Born1952
Jersey City, New Jersey, US
OccupationHistorian
Known forCross-cultural perspectives on women in science and Director of the Kovalevskaia Fund
Awards Margaret W. Rossiter History of Women in Science Prize
Honorary Doctorate from Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College
President's Friendship Medal (Vietnam)
Academic background
Alma mater Princeton University
Boston University
General
National libraries
Other
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