Winner Of The 2024 Best Book Award Presented By The South Atlantic Modern Language Associationin Equal Natures, Shalyn Claggett Argues That Victorian Women Writers Used Scientific Understandings Of The Brain To Challenge Socially Constructed Forms Of Power And Gender Inequality. Focusing On Phrenologythe First Science Of Brain Localization And The Most Popular Science In Nineteenth-century Britainclaggett Shows How These Writers Leveraged Phrenology''s Premise That The Seat Of Identity Is Innate Rather Than Acquired To Make New Claims About Women''s Intellectual Abilities And Psychological Complexity. Whereas Male Scientists Often Used Phrenology To Support Racist And Colonialist Agendas, In The Hands Of Women, An Appeal To Biology Became A Tool Of Subversion.