Math in the News
Mathematics and What It Means to Be Human, Part 2
English professor Michele Osherow and mathematician Manil Suri continue their discussion about working together teaching a first-year seminar "Mathematics and What It Means to be Human."
In part two of this series for The Chronicle of Higher Education, the pair discusses teaching the Oulipo Compendium, a collection of poems created by a group of writers and mathematicians who were organized by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais.
"I had never heard the word Oulipo (short for Ouvroir de Litterature Potentielle, or Workshop of Potential Literature)," said Osherow, "and was surprised when Manil handed me the anthology during our course planning. He qualified the suggestion by saying he had 'no idea if it was any good.' But I was intrigued: Literature produced through a series of strict constraints was an interesting fusion of our two fields. I wasn't sure, though, if the art was to be found in the language or in the template. I worried that to some students it wouldn't matter."
Read the full interview from The Chronicle of Higher Education