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	Andrea Charise

HCTP Alumni (PhD Fellow 2007 - 2009)
andrea.charise@utoronto.ca


Andrea is a doctoral candidate in the Department of English at the University of Toronto. She is also part of the HCTP Collaborative Program.


Department:	English
Institution:	University of Toronto
HCTP Mentors:	Gillian Einstein, Elizabeth Harvey
Seminar:	Phrenology to Photons: Cultural Technologies of Brain Mapping in 19th Century Science and Modern Neuroimaging

Education
Bachelor of Arts and Science (BArts.Sc, Comb. Hons. Comparative Literature), McMaster University Master of Arts (Theory & Criticism), University of Western Ontario Doctoral Candidate (English), University of Toronto

Disciplines
English Literature, Medicine (Neurology, neuroimaging/MRI technologies), History of Science, Geriatrics

Title of Project
Phrenology to photons: Cultural technologies of brain mapping in Victorian science and modern neurological research

Research Problem/Issue
This research project investigates the conceptual linkages between recent trends in neurological research concerning “brain mapping” and the nineteenth-century pseudoscientific practice of phrenology. By considering this simultaneously social and scientific Victorian discourse alongside contemporary neuroimaging technologies such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), my research project will assess the extent to which modern neurological research may be said to inherit nineteenth-century and, more exactly, phrenological assumptions regarding the nature of personality, destiny, and the ethics of psychological treatment, particularly with respect to the aging brain.

Research Plan
The project speaks to three domains: the literary, medical, and historical construction of scientific discourses as narrative forces of culture. I will assess the extent to which phrenological practices influenced nineteenth-century concepts of self by examining, in light of phrenological texts such as George Combe’s The Constitution of Man Considered in Relation to External Objects (1828), Victorian realist novels that make use of phrenological assumptions in their construction of true-to-life literary characters (especially those depicting the aged). In order to assess the extent of this scientific and cultural legacy, I explore in what ways do modern neurological impressions of personality, genetic predisposition, and physical manifestations of psychopathology retain –but also fundamentally depart from– those tenets of the “quack” science to which it owes the very notion of cerebral localization. The questions researched in this historical study will be focused by an overarching concern with the very ethics of psychological illness, its clinical treatment, and cultural construction in contemporary society: how do technologies of reading the embodied mind as self influence social and scientific models, practices, and perceived possibilities of psychological treatment?

Knowledge Translation Plan
In terms of literary scholarship, my project will contribute to emerging studies of phrenology as both a nineteenth-century literary and cultural discourse. For historians of science, my findings will contribute to the recognition of intellectual legacies borne by “failed” or pseudo-sciences. From a medical standpoint, my project will assess the seepage of historically- and philosophically-based notions of the “self” into the very techniques, technologies, and theoretical assumptions that motivate modern neurological research, particularly regarding the aging brain. I am preparing to present a manuscript based on my research findings in both interdisciplinary forums and discipline-specific conferences.



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