| Abstract |
"Writing the Brain: Material Minds and Literature, 1800-1880, examines the intersections of literature and brain anatomy in England and the United States between the years 1800 and 1880. These decades were not only marked by major milestones in the mapping of the human brain, but also saw scientists and literary authors generally engage with the public in the same venues, be they publishing houses, monthly periodicals, or daily newspapers. Writing the Brain tracks how writers of fiction and poetry encountered novel scientific discoveries about the material nature of cognition-and how literature, in turn, influenced scientific theorizing. In a period that laid some of the foundations for modern neuroscience, material brains became a topic of intense popular interest, and their echoes can be found in many of the canonical texts from the time-from Whitman to Dickens, and from Dickinson to Tennyson-as well as in some of the textual rediscoveries presented in this study. Theorizing the brain as a cultural object, this book analyzes its discursive self-fashioning through various fields of media, be it literature, science, or technology. It argues that the cultural force of brain anatomy and its attendant theories of material minds posed a number of ontological and epistemological quandaries that shaped the era's literatures and sciences. Writing the Brain traces these historical trends to excavate an often overlooked, entangled history of early neuroscientific insight and literary expression"-- Provided by publisher. |
