Sex in Mind: The Gendered Brain in Nineteenth-century Literature and Mental SciencesPeter Lang, 2005 - 229 pages Sex in Mind: The Gendered Brain in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Mental Sciences explores the role of the sexed brain in Victorian science and literature, showing the increasing nineteenth-century fixation on abnormal brain function and the cultural desire to create mental categories based on gender. In a discussion of neurology, psychology, and other mental sciences, Rachel Malane examines how the rational male mind and the emotional female mind became a culturally accepted idea that was substantiated by scientists and how the Victorian preoccupation with the sexed mind infiltrated contemporary literature. Focusing on the novels of Charlotte Brontë, Wilkie Collins, and Thomas Hardy, Malane analyzes how these narratives of love, insanity, and tragedy were in dynamic conversation with the prevailing views about the brain. Sex in Mind offers an intriguing look at the nineteenth-century understanding of the gendered mind - such as the belief that the reproductive organs were connected to the brain - and it shows how Victorian writers both incorporated and dissected the idea that men and women have separate minds. |
Table des matières
CHAPTER TWO Gendered Brain Spaces and the Anxiety | 67 |
CHAPTER THREE Pathological Functions of Gendered Brains | 111 |
CHAPTER FOUR The Tragedy of Gendered Mental Realms | 157 |
Droits d'auteur | |
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ability Alexander Bain Angel argued becomes behavior believed Benjulia biological bodily body brain function brain space Brontë Carmina century cerebral Charlotte Brontë Collins Collins's connection craniology cultural depiction difference effect emotional ence evidence evolutionary experience explores faculties feelings female brain female characters female mind feminine fiction frontal lobes Gallilee gendered brain gendered mind genius Hardy's Heart and Science Henry Maudsley human ideas insanity intellectual intelligence Jane Eyre Jane's knowledge Lady Constantine Laura Lucy Lucy's male and female male brain male characters male mind Marian mental function mental science mind's narratives natural nervous system nineteenth nineteenth-century notes notion novels organ Ovid particular pathology Paul phrenology physical physiognomy physiological psychology reason relationship reproductive result Rochester Rochester's scientific scientists sensation sensation fiction Sensation Novels sexual shows skull social society studies susceptibility Swithin Tess Tess's theories Thomas Hardy thoughts tion Victorian Wilkie Collins Woman in White women