Literature, Neurology, and Neuroscience: Historical and Literary Connections

Brings together cutting-edge research on literature, neurology and neuroscience and their history and modern perspectives

Anne Stiles (Volume editor), Stanley Finger (Volume editor), Francois Boller (Volume editor)

9780444632739, Elsevier Science

Hardback, published 9 December 2013

368 pages
23.4 x 19 x 2.5 cm, 0.85 kg

This well-established international series examines major areas of basic and clinical research within neuroscience, as well as emerging and promising subfields. This volume on the neurosciences, neurology, and literature vividly shows how science and the humanities can come together --- and have come together in the past. Its sections provide a new, broad look at these interactions, which have received surprisingly little attention in the past. Experts in the field cover literature as a window to neurological and scientific zeitgeists, theories of brain and mind in literature, famous authors and their suspected neurological disorders, and how neurological disorders and treatments have been described in literature. In addition, a myriad of other topics are covered, including some on famous authors whose important connections to the neurosciences have been overlooked (e.g., Roget, of Thesaurus fame), famous neuroscientists who should also be associated with literature, and some overlooked scientific and medical men who helped others produce great literary works (e,g., Bram Stoker's Dracula). There has not been a volume with this coverage in the past, and the connections it provides should prove fascinating to individuals in science, medicine, history, literature, and various other disciplines.

The Overlooked Literary Path to Modern Electrophysiology: Philosophical Dialogues, Novels, and Travel Books - Stanley Finger Oscar Wilde and the Brain Cell - Elisha Cohn Forgetting the Madeleine: Proust and the Neurosciences - Patrick M. Bray Optograms and Criminology: Science, News Reporting, and Fanciful Novels - Douglas J. Lanska Phrenology and Physiognomy in Victorian Literature - Rhonda Boshears and Harry Whitaker Neurological and Psychological Constructs in Sheridan Le Fanu’s In a Glass Darkly - Sheryl R. Ginn Lord Byron’s Physician: John William Polidori on Somnambulism - Stanley Finger and Anne Stiles Return of the Living Dead : Re-reading Pierre Flourens’ contributions to neurophysiology and literature -Sharman Levinson Peter Mark Roget: Physician, Scientist, Systematist; his Thesaurus and his Impact on 19th-Century Neuroscience - Lawrence Kruger and Stanley Finger Bram Stoker's Brother, the Brain Surgeon - Anne Stiles Gustave Flaubert, Charles Dickens, and Isaac Pulvermacher’s "Magic Band" - Robert K. Waits Alexander Forbes, Walter Cannon, and Science-Based Literature - Justin Garson Neurology, Poetry and the First World War of 1914-18 - Christopher Gardner-Thorpe Epilepsy in the Process of Artistic Creation: Fyodor M. Dostoevsky (1821 – 1881) - Ivan Iniesta Mindblindness: Metaphor and Neuroaesthetics in the Works of Silas Weir Mitchell and Simon Baron-Cohen - Kristine Swenson Literary Aesthetics: Beauty, The Brain, and Mrs. Dalloway - Patrick Colm Hogan

Subject Areas: Neurosciences [PSAN], Neurology & clinical neurophysiology [MJN]