Anita Burdman Feferman (July 27, 1927 – April 9, 2015) was an American

historian of mathematics The history of mathematics deals with the origin of discoveries in mathematics and the mathematical methods and notation of the past. Before the modern age and the worldwide spread of knowledge, written examples of new mathematical developments ...

and biographer, known for her biographies of

Jean van Heijenoort Jean Louis Maxime van Heijenoort (; July 23, 1912 – March 29, 1986) was a historian of mathematical logic. He was also a personal secretary to Leon Trotsky from 1932 to 1939, and an American Trotskyist until 1947. Life Van Heijenoort was born ...

and (with her husband, logician

Solomon Feferman Solomon Feferman (December 13, 1928 – July 26, 2016) was an American philosopher and mathematician who worked in mathematical logic. Life Solomon Feferman was born in The Bronx in New York City to working-class parents who had immigrated to th ...

) of

Alfred Tarski Alfred Tarski (, born Alfred Teitelbaum;School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews ''School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews''. January 14, 1901 – October 26, 1983) was a Polish-American logician a ...

Life

Feferman was born on July 27, 1927. She was originally from

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

, and attended

Hollywood High School Hollywood High School is a four-year public secondary school in the Los Angeles Unified School District, located at the intersection of North Highland Avenue and West Sunset Boulevard in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles, California. Histo ...

and the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

before earning a bachelor's degree in 1948 from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. She became a schoolteacher in the

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

school system, and earned another degree in teaching from UC Berkeley. In 1956 her husband

took a position at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, and she moved with him and their two daughters from the

East Bay The East Bay is the eastern region of the San Francisco Bay Area and includes cities along the eastern shores of the San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay. The region has grown to include inland communities in Alameda and Contra Costa countie ...

to the

San Francisco Peninsula The San Francisco Peninsula is a peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area that separates San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. On its northern tip is the City and County of San Francisco. Its southern base is Mountain View, south of Palo A ...

. She died on April 9, 2015.

Books

At Stanford, Feferman became a member of a biography seminar led by Barbara A. Babcock and

Diane Middlebrook Diane Helen Middlebrook ( Wood; April 16, 1939 – December 15, 2007) Cynthia Haven"Diane Middlebrook, professor emeritus and legendary biographer, dies at 68" ''Stanford Report'', December 15, 2007. was an American biographer, poet, and tea ...

. Her first biography, of

, was ''Politics, Logic, and Love: The Life of Jean van Heijenoort'' (Jones and Bartlett, 1993), also published as ''From Trotsky to Gödel: The Life of Jean van Heijenoort'' (CRC Press, 2001). With Solomon Feferman, she was the co-author of a biography of

, ''Alfred Tarski: Life and Logic'' (Cambridge University Press, 2004).

References

External links

Feferman (Anita Burdman) Papers
Stanford University Archives, via Online Archive of California {{DEFAULTSORT:Feferman, Anita Burdman 1927 births 2015 deaths University of California, Berkeley alumni American biographers American historians of mathematics