Muriel Seltman (; 27 March 1927 – 2 December 2019) was British left-wing activist, mathematics educator, historian of mathematics, and author of books on mathematics, religion, politics, and philosophy.

Life

Seltman was born in Stamford Hill, a Jewish neighborhood of London, on 27 March 1927. She studied mathematics and mathematics education at Trinity College Dublin, and met her husband there. They joined the

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPG ...

in 1952, but by the early 1960s had been expelled from the party for their anti-revisionism (sympathy for

Maoism Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Chi ...

and opposition to the

Khrushchev Thaw The Khrushchev Thaw ( rus, хрущёвская о́ттепель, r=khrushchovskaya ottepel, p=xrʊˈɕːɵfskəjə ˈotʲ:ɪpʲɪlʲ or simply ''ottepel'')William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, London: Free Press, 2004 is the period ...

). They traveled with their son to North Korea, where Seltman worked as a teacher, but, bored with the

North Korean cult of personality The North Korean cult of personality surrounding its ruling family, the Kim family, has existed in North Korea for decades and can be found in many examples of North Korean culture. Although not acknowledged by the North Korean government, many d ...

and their life there, left for China in 1965, just in time for the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...

. Disillusioned, they returned to England in 1966, and Seltman later wrote a book ''What's Left? What's Right?'' describing her experiences. She taught mathematics at

Avery Hill College The University of Greenwich is a public university located in London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands ...

beginning in 1968, retiring in 1981 but continuing on a part-time basis for another 20 years, through the college's 1985 incorporation into the

University of Greenwich The University of Greenwich is a public university located in London and Kent, United Kingdom. Previous names include Woolwich Polytechnic and Thames Polytechnic. The university's main campus is at the Old Royal Naval College, which along with it ...

. Her works in mathematics and the history of mathematics include a translation of a book on

algebra Algebra () is one of the broad areas of mathematics. Roughly speaking, algebra is the study of mathematical symbols and the rules for manipulating these symbols in formulas; it is a unifying thread of almost all of mathematics. Elementary a ...

by Thomas Harriot, originally published in 1631, a few years after Harriot's death. Co-editor Robert Goulding provided the translation, while Seltman was responsible for the book's detailed commentary on Harriot's work, with both translation and commentary based on a master's thesis she wrote at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

, ''A Commentary on the Artis Analyticae Praxis of Thomas Harriot'' (1972). She also completed a PhD at University College London, with the dissertation ''Descartes's "Regulae ad directionem ingenii": a case-study in the emergence of early modern algebra'' (1987). Although of Jewish descent, she became a nontheist Quaker, and despite her early experiences continued to describe herself as a

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

. She died on 2 December 2019.

Books

Seltman's books include: *''Piaget's Logic: A Critique of Genetic Epistemology'' (with Peter Seltman, George Allen & Unwin, 1985) *''Thomas Harriot's Artis Analyticae Praxis: An English Translation with Commentary'' (edited with Robert Goulding, Springer, 2007) *''What's Left? What's Right?: A Political Journey via North Korea and the Chinese Cultural Revolution'' (Dorrance Publishing, 2010) *''Bread and Roses: Nontheism and the Human Spirit'' (Matador, 2013) *''The Changing Faces of Antisemitism'' (Matador, 2015) *''Rescuing God From Religion'' (Matador, 2016) *''Rescuing Jesus from Christianity'' (Matador, 2018) *''Marx the Humanist'' (Troubador, 2019)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Seltman, Muriel 1927 births 2019 deaths British women historians British women mathematicians Mathematics educators British historians of mathematics Alumni of Trinity College Dublin Alumni of University College London Academics of the University of Greenwich British Quakers Nontheist Quakers British women Marxists