Lecture Announcement: Ksenija Atanasijević and the First Doctorate in Mathematics by a Woman in Serbia

As part of the international celebration of Women in Mathematics Day, Saša Popović, associate of the Mathematical Institute of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, will give a lecture on the doctoral dissertation of Ksenija Atanasijević — the first woman in Serbia to earn a PhD and the first female docent at the University of Belgrade.

Atanasijević defended her dissertation in 1922 at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, focusing on the geometrico-metaphysical theory of minima developed by the Renaissance philosopher and mathematician Giordano Bruno in his 1591 work De triplici minimo et mensura. The dissertation was written under the mentorship of academician Branislav Petronijević and defended before a distinguished committee of leading Serbian scholars. It was published the following year in French under the title La doctrine métaphysique et géométrique de Bruno.

Today, Atanasijević’s dissertation is also considered the first doctoral thesis by a woman in the field of mathematics in Serbia.

The lecture will trace the genesis and intellectual context of Atanasijević’s work, explore the unique nature of her dissertation, and discuss the intriguing fact that it is catalogued in the Mathematics Genealogy Project as a contribution to mathematics. The talk will also highlight the international reception of the monograph and its relevance for understanding Petronijević’s theory of discrete geometry.