Books in HSLIC

Select resources about physiognomy, phrenology, and pseudoscience in HSLIC. Items in Special Collections are available to view by appointment only. Please note that UNM credentials are needed to access some of the electronic resources if you are not in HSLIC.

Brain and Mind, or, Mental Science Considered in Accordance with the Principles of Phrenology, and in Relation to Modern Physiology by Henry S. Drayton and James McNeill
Publication Date: 1880
1 online resource (334 pages, 1 unnumbered leaf of plates) : illustrations, portraits
Creative and Sexual Science, or, Manhood, Womanhood, and Their Mutual Interrelations : Love, Its Laws, Power, Etc. by O.S. Fowler
Call Number: (Special Collections - Offsite Storage) HQ 31 F82 1875
Publication Date: 1875
Gender. Its existence, analysis and office ; The science of manhood and womanhood ; Gender, its signs and power over body and mind, &c. -- Love. Analysis of love, and its power over the entire being ; Marriage the true sphere of love, its duty, advantages, objections, etc. -- Selection, conjugal and parental adaptations...
Elements of Phrenology by George Combe
Call Number: (Special Collections - Offsite Storage) BF 870 C72 1828
Publication Date: 1828
3rd ed., improved and enl.
The Face of Madness by Sander L. Gilman
Call Number: (Books Non-Circulating - Offsite Storage) WM 100 F11 1976
ISBN: 0876301324
Publication Date: 1976-01-01
Carlson, E.T. Introduction. -- Gilman, S.L. Hugh W. Diamond and psychiatric photography. -- Diamond, H.W. On the application of photography to the physiognomic and mental phenomena of insanity. -- Conolly, J. Case studies from The physiognomy of insanity.
Forty Years in Phrenology : Embracing Recollections of History, Anecdote, and Experience by Nelson Sizer
Call Number: (Special Collections - Offsite Storage) BF 871 S625 1882
Publication Date: 1882
By Nelson Sizer, author of "Choice of pursuits ; or, What to do and why," "How to teach ; or, Phrenology in the shool-room and the family," "Thoughts on domestic life ; or, Marriage vindicated and free love exposed," professor of mental science in the American Institute of Phrenology, associate editor of the American phrenological journal, etc.
Hereditary Descent: Its Laws and Facts Applied to Human Improvement by O.S. Fowler
Call Number: (Special Collections - Offsite Storage) QZ 0 F787 1875
Publication Date: 1875
xii, 1 leaf, [15].288, [4] pages illustrations 20 cm
How to Read Character: A New Illustrated Hand-Book of Phrenology and Physiognomy, for Students and Examiners; with a Descriptive Chart by Samuel R Wells (Samuel Roberts)
Call Number: (Special Collections - Offsite Storage) BF 871 W46 1886
Publication Date: 1869
viii, 191 pages illustrations 20 cm
The Illustrated Self-Instructor in Phrenology and Physiology by O.S. and L.N. Fowler
Publication Date: 1849, 1857
Includes one hundred engravings and a chart of the character.
The Intuitions of the Mind Inductively Investigated by James McCosh
Publication Date: 1860
1 online resource (viii, 504 pages)
An Organ of Murder: Crime, Violence, and Phrenology in Nineteenth-Century America by Courtney E. Thompson
ISBN: 9781978813083
Publication Date: 2021
n Organ of Murder explores the origins of both popular and elite theories of criminality in the nineteenth-century United States, focusing in particular on the influence of phrenology. In the United States, phrenology shaped the production of medico-legal knowledge around crime, the treatment of the criminal within prisons and in public discourse, and sociocultural expectations about the causes of crime.
Photography in the Third Reich: Art, Physiognomy and Propaganda by Christopher Webster
ISBN: 9781783749171
Publication Date: 2021
The volume explores, through photographic reproductions and accompanying analysis, diverse aspects of photography during the Third Reich, ranging from the influence of Modernism, the qualitative effect of propaganda photography, and the utilisation of technology such as colour film, to the photograph as ideological metaphor. With an emphasis on the idealised representation of the German body and the role of physiognomy within this representation, the book examines how selected photographers created and developed a visual myth of the 'master race' and its antitheses under the auspices of the Nationalist Socialist state.
The Physiognomy of Mental Diseases by Sir Alexander Morison
Call Number: (Special Collections - Offsite Storage) WZ 260 M861 1974
Publication Date: 1843, 1974
Facsimile of the 1843 2nd London edition by Longman and Co. The plates were made from the 1853 Leipzig edition and the 1843 London edition. Cf. Colophon.
Practical Phrenology Giving a Concise Elementary View of Phrenology by O S Fowler (Orson Squire)
Publication Date: date not identified
1 online resource (3 preliminary leaves, 5-70 pages, 1 leaf illustrations)
Pseudo-Science and Society in 19th-Century America by Arthur Wrobel (Editor)
ISBN: 9780813165035
Publication Date: 2014-07-15
Progressive nineteenth-century Americans believed firmly that human perfection could be achieved with the aid of modern science. As the contributors to this volume show, the diffusion and practice of these pseudo-sciences intertwined with all the major medical, cultural, religious, and philosophical revolutions in nineteenth-century America.
Psicología del pensamiento by John Dewey
Publication Date: 1917
1 online resource (xxii pages, 1 leaf, 247 pages)
Quantum Leaps in the Wrong Direction by Charles M. Wynn; Arthur W. Wiggins; Sidney Harris (Illustrator)
ISBN: 9780190620301
Publication Date: 2017-01-01
Quantum Leaps in the Wrong Direction carefully deconstructs five examples of pseudoscience - UFOs, out-of-body experiences, astrology, creationism, and ESP - and gives easy recipes to test other dubious notions so that you can tell what lies in the realm of real science and what more properly deserves the tag of pseudoscience.
A System of Phrenology by George Combe
Call Number: (Special Collections - Offsite Storage) BF 0 C73 1871
Publication Date: 1858
516 pages : illustrations ; 20 cm
Visualizing the Invisible with the Human Body by Alessandro Stavru (Editor); J. Cale Johnson (Editor); Alessandro Stavru (Editor); J. Cale Johnson (Editor)
ISBN: 9783110642698
Publication Date: 2019-11-05
This volume offer the first wide-ranging picture of these modalities of description in antiquity.

Other Resources

Please note that UNM credentials are needed to access some of the electronic resources if you are not in HSLIC.

Theses and Dissertations

Borst, A. F. (2014). A Chant of Dilation: Walt Whitman, Phrenology, and the Language of the Mind (Order No. 3623536). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (1550897542).

Goldberg, B. A. (1967). A Phrenological Explication of Section 15 of “Song of Myself” (Order No. EP00387). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (302263072).

WROBEL, A. (1968). Walt Whitman and The Fowler Brothers: Phrenology Finds A Bard (Order No. 6901701). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (302355278).

HathiTrust Resources

Essays on physiognomy. [From the German] by T. Holcroft. [With] physiognomonical rules, a posthumous work, and life of the author, [pp. xvii-cxxviii] compiled from G. Gessner.

Articles

MacDonald, Arthur. “Abnormal Man: Being Essays on Education and Crime and Related Subjects.” Science, vol. 22, no. 552, 1893, pp. 122–23.

Physiognomy

Physiognomy is "the practice of assessing one’s mental character based on physical attributes—and explores its influence on contemporary artificial intelligence and computer science technologies that gather and interpret body data.

Now debunked as pseudoscience, physiognomy enjoyed periods of legitimacy and popularity over a history spanning millennia, influencing the fields of medicine, biology, philosophy, anthropology, psychiatry, and criminology.

After serving as a tool for scientific racism and eugenics, physiognomy was roundly discredited in the 20th century."

- National Library of Medicine

Promising Future, Complex Past: Artificial Intelligence and the Legacy of Physiognomy

Books in HSLIC

Other Resources

Essays on physiognomy. [From the German] by T. Holcroft. [With] physiognomonical rules, a posthumous work, and life of the author, [pp. xvii-cxxviii] compiled from G. Gessner.

Physiognomy

"Criminal Man"