BANANA

The present project deals with the exploitation and valorization of the archives of the group of mathematicians known under the pseudonym "Nicolas Bourbaki", these archives having been little studied for the period 1953-1970. The first objective of the project, at the crossroads of archival science and digital humanities, consists in analyzing the ways in which the Bourbaki group contributed to the patrimonialization of its archives and in facilitating the exploration and exploitation of the digitized archives of the group. A second objective, articulating history and philosophy of mathematics, aims to mobilize and develop methods of genetic criticism that allow us to unfold the processes of textual and conceptual fabrication of the Elements of Mathematics – an ambitious editorial enterprise initiated by Bourbaki at the end of the 1930s -, while examining the historiographical and epistemological questions raised by Bourbaki's collective writing practices. A third objective, at the interface between history and sociology of science, is to continue the work of re-evaluating Bourbaki's position within the field of mathematical sciences until the end of the 1960s. To this end, we will carry out a prosopographical study that will allow us to isolate the possible effects that belonging to Bourbaki had on the trajectories of its members. We will also show how the activities of the group contributed to the disciplinaryization of certain branches of modern mathematics, notably in university-level teaching. Finally, we will pay attention to the scholarly and academic uses that were made of the Elements of Mathematics.