Nominator's project description
| Andrea Bréard’s main focus is the history of Chinese mathematics from the late imperial period into the 20th century. In this context, she looks well beyond the history of mathematics in China, combining economic history with political and social history to gain insights into the development of intellectual history in China in its entirety. Her research on the history of statistical methods in the administrative and political contexts is one concrete example. Here, Bréard has been able to show how a modern state and the field of statistics were created concurrently. In her research she also demonstrates how China’s scientific culture has been shaped by its own values which derive from the country’s cultural history – and which at first glance do not always concur with the standards of western science. Studies of this kind have earned her recognition not just in mathematics but also in Sinology and the history of science.
As a Humboldt Professor at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Bréard is set to become the new director of the International Consortium for Research in the Humanities. With her background as a mathematician, science historian, Sinologist and philosopher, Andrea Bréard will introduce new, interdisciplinary perspectives on the history of science and reinforce research into prognostication. |
