Skulls and Society

Abstract

Abstract This chapter examines the literary effects of phrenology, one of the first modern theories of brain localization, which asserted that the brain is a multi-organ entity and behavioral traits can be mapped onto its different regions. This theory of mental stasis could only explain radical behavior change, as embodied by the famous case of Phineas Gage, through brain damage. Consequently, many literary (proto-)Realists and ardent believers in phrenology began exploiting the trope of “blows upon the head” for literary effect. The chapter then branches out from the conundrum of free will in phrenology to discuss its societal visions, from the sociology of class belonging of George Combe in the works of Charles Dickens to the celebration of American (cranial) exceptionalism in the Fowler brothers via their literary customer, Walt Whitman.