Topological genealogy and rhythmanalysis in Mary Winston Newson's automathography

Purpose This paper develops the concept of topological genealogy to analyse the automathography of Mary Frances Winston Newson (1869–1959), the first American woman to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics from a European university. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on Newson's letters and autobiographical note from Göttingen (1893–96), the study situates her writings within a feminist genealogy that resists linear progress narratives, tracing instead uneven, folded and discontinuous trajectories. Combining Foucault's genealogical method with Lefebvre's rhythmanalysis and Bachelard's topoanalysis, it reads Newson's texts as inscriptions of intellectual subjectivity shaped by oscillating rhythms of anticipation and delay, joy and precarity, companionship and solitude. Findings Göttingen emerges as a nodal site where women's presence was admitted only ausnahmsweise – as exceptions – yet inscribed through letters, friendships and everyday spaces. Originality/value By foregrounding topological genealogy, the paper proposes a methodological approach that maps the resonant, fragmented and contingent terrains through which women mathematicians entered intellectual history.