James Benning

James Benning proved himself to be a man of many talents with his math presentation. In general, there tends to be a sizable divide between the worlds of math, science and engineering, and the worlds of art, literature and philosophy -- it's unsurprising that the Art and EMS buildings are at opposite ends of our own campus, after all.

In my experience at both ends of the campus, most math instructors treat their area of expertise as something sterile... a large, artificial construct that hangs over the rest of the world like a suspension bridge over a river. Benning doesn't treat math as something purely abstract and didactic; rather, he finds ways to tie it to human insight and reality. For example, his discussion on the history of the number zero in Western mathematics was definitely intriguing and insightful in illustrating how our society has been (and still remains, perhaps) in tension between it's newer scientific traditions and its older religious ones.

I have to admit that, while I had a hard time focusing throughout the whole demonstration (for me personally, none of the math Benning presented were new concepts), I was impressed at how well he grabbed the attention of the audience at large. The feedback I've been party too has been overwhelmingly positive. I suspect that Benning managed to introduce our class to a world most of them never thought would carry any interest or insight for them. This is no small feat, and it is a credit to Benning as an artist that he was able to reveal an aspect of the greater world to us.