Sex in mind
Subtitle: the gendered brain in nineteenth-century literature and mental sciences
By: Rachel Malane.
Series: Studies in nineteenth-century British literature ;; v. 22
Publisher: Peter Lang
Published: 2005
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 229
Subjects: Brontë, Charlotte, 1816-1855 -- Knowledge -- Psychology.; Collins, Wilkie, 1824-1889 -- Knowledge -- Psychology.; Hardy, Thomas, 1840-1928 -- Knowledge -- Psychology.; English fiction -- 19th century -- History and criticism.; Sex role in literature.; Psychological fiction, English -- History and criticism.; Sex differences in literature.; Brain -- Sex differences.
Description: "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 Bronte, 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."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [207]-221) and index.
Table of contents: title: Theories of the gendered mind and brain in nineteenth-century mental sciences; title: Gendered brain spaces and the anxiety of transgression in Charlotte Brontë's novels; title: Pathological functions of gendered brains in the sensation novels of Wilkie Collins; title: The tragedy of gendered mental realms in Thomas Hardy's novels - The pervasiveness of the gendered mind in the nineteenth century.