Performing the Sign: Mathematics, democracy and the arts

Abstract

First paragraph: I could never have imagined what a wonderful array of fascinating, unique, innovative, thought-provoking and timely contributions would show up in my computer’s inbox when I sent out the call for the special issue. I had kept the call purposefully open-ended. I was more than delighted when I realized the call had been taken up with enthusiasm and passionate commitment to an enlarged and complicated conversation. It was a conversation that delved deeply and creatively into the difficult interplay between mathematics, democracy and the arts. Ten articles in particular stood out. They did so in the brilliance with which they took on the themes and took up the challenges suggested in my call, and went much further. The arguments, ideas, associations and perspectives were diverse and refreshing, keeping in play the complexities, criticalities and multiplicities of thinking and feeling that such a focus could evoke. The challenge set in motion an intertextual discursive (dis)play of ideas and performances that were open, rich, informative and demanding of attention.