Phrenology and the Origins of Victorian Scientific Naturalism

Wyhe, John van

doi:10.4324/9781315246857

Cited by 20 publications

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“…Thus, this essay is not intended to trace the bumpy history of the phrenological movement as it impacted leading physicians, influential people, the laity, or the arts. These are topics covered elsewhere (e.g., Colbert, ; Cooter, ,,; Davies, ; De Giustino, ; Finger & Eling, ; Shapin, ; Van Wyhe, ). Rather, it is sharply focused on Mark Twain and phrenology and is intended to show other things.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mark Twain's life‐long fascination with phrenology

Finger

2019

J History Behavioral Science

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Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain; 1835–1910), American humorist and writer, followed scientific and medical developments, and relished exposing questionable practices and ideas. In his youth, he pondered how phrenologists were assessing character, and in 1855 he copied sections of a phrenology book and a skull diagram into a notebook. Later, in London, he had two phrenological examinations by Lorenzo Fowler—one without and the other after identifying himself. Following his “test,” which produced contrasting results, he began to ridicule phrenologists and phrenology in Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and other works. He underwent at least two more head readings in the United States, and in Eddypus, an unfinished work from 1901 to 1902, he maintained that phrenologists base their insights primarily on how people dress and answer questions. Although now lampooning the craniological tenets of phrenology, Twain never seemed to reject the idea of distinct faculties of mind associated with specialized brain organs.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mark Twain's life‐long fascination with phrenology

Finger

2019

J History Behavioral Science

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“…58 Of these four men, the least is known of Charles Brown, whose short self-justifying account seemingly reflects a relative youthful arrogance. 59 Finally, Richard Vowell stayed the longest in South America and his memoir has the most developed literary style of the eight, but his identity is less immediately apparent. 60 These accounts share variations on a common set of tropes including, for example, untamed and dangerous landscape and environment, the 'unmilitary'…”

Section: British Travel Writings and Readers In The Post-napoleonic Eramentioning

confidence: 99%

“…151-163. 59 C. Brown, Narrative of the Expedition to South America, which sailed from England at the close of 1817, for the service of the Spanish Patriots: including the military and naval transactions, and ultimate fate of that expedition: Also the arrival of Colonels Blosset and English, with British troops for that service, their reception and subsequent proceedings, with other interesting occurrences (London, 1819).…”

Section: British Travel Writings and Readers In The Post-napoleonic Eramentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The 'parade ground' could be improved, and objections of the town's inhabitants to removal of the 'fetish tree' that stood in the way were of no consequence to Hutton, 'when the natives have so many other places to worship their wooden gods'. 59 Again, Hutton saw potential in the landscape despite the local populace. Improvement through cultivation again featured high on the list of priorities, and the vegetable gardens beyond the town -for the benefit of officers and merchants rather than the general (Fante) population -drew Hutton's praise.…”

Section: The Gold Coast: Established Bridgehead and Point Of Departurementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Gall and Spurzheim, excoriating critiques such as the Quarterly Review's that year, and his Edinburgh contemporary Dr John Gordon's rebuttal, 'The Doctrines of Gall and Spurzheim', in The Edinburgh Review. 59 Gordon condemned Spurzheim's 'opinions' in The Physiological System, being 'the more minute in our sketch of them, that their absurdity might be the more apparent'. Spurzheim's 'System of Morals' was 'perfectly unintelligible'.…”

Section: The Scientific Author: Jh Robinson Phrenology and Authentici...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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An encultured imperialism: British travel writing from the post-Napoleonic Atlantic periphery

Burke¹

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This thesis examines two selections of published travel writings produced between 1816 and 1831, analysing the encultured attitudes, beliefs, prejudices, and agendas of eight aspiring careerist white British men as they travelled and served in regions on the Atlantic peripheries of British influence. The theatres in question were the Gold Coast in West Africa and the neighbouring Asante Empire, all encountered under the aegis of official or quasi-official British authority, and the region of New Spain encompassing Venezuela and Columbia in South America, all conducted privately as mercenaries on the part of the revolutionary Patriot cause against Imperial Spain. Whether serving in the uniforms of British state institutions or the Venezuelan Republic, these individuals produced accounts of their experiences that more effectively reflected their encultured British National-Imperial worldview than any objective description of the transitional cultures they encountered. I begin the thesis by exploring the cultural context of their travels and publications, the relationship of these to the wider issues of an emerging British Imperial worldview, and a conceptual definition of encultured imperialism as a form of pre-eminent performative engagement with the wider world. Chapter 1 expands on the backgrounds and motivations of the authors in pursuing their service or adventures, within the context of British domestic understandings of the two theatres they visited. Chapter 2 discusses their use of trends and conventions of engagement with landscape and environment, including their efforts to familiarise the exotic as a step towards imagining its subordination to British knowledge. Chapter 3 considers the authors’ evaluations of human geographies, with the further imperative of subordinating other infrastructural and geographical cultures to a projection of British ‘improvement’. In Chapter 4, the focus turns fully on people and these authors’ uses of established and developing hierarchies of difference including tropes of savagery and civilisation, and emergent concepts of scientific racism. Chapter 5 incorporates the influence of encultured conceptions of gender on human difference to complete the analysis of the exclusionary practices of the authors’ self-confident National-Imperial worldview.

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Religion and Science: A Field of Study?

Knight

2008

Metasci

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Phrenology and the Origins of Victorian Scientific Naturalism

Cited by 20 publications

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Mark Twain's life‐long fascination with phrenology

Mark Twain's life‐long fascination with phrenology

An encultured imperialism: British travel writing from the post-Napoleonic Atlantic periphery

Religion and Science: A Field of Study?

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