Pratt Institute
Mathematics & Science
MSCI 307P Configuration: Mathematics & the American Avant-Garde
Philip Ording
Wednesdays 9:30 am - 12:20 pm
Fall 2025

This course will explore interactions between modern mathematical concepts and 20th century American visual, literary, and performing arts. Our focus will be the experimental Black Mountain College, a small and short-lived college of liberal arts in North Carolina that is distinguished as much by its outsized influence on the development of the post-war avant-garde as its communal approach to education. Retracing the novel exchanges between art and science fostered by this approach will serve as the basis for a broader investigation of the potential mathematics holds for art and design practices today.