ABSTRACT
Since the 1990s, scholarship connecting neuroscience to Victorian literature has proliferated exponentially, usually taking one of three forms. The first is literary scholarship that draws on nineteenth-century history of science. The second is cognitive literary scholarship, which turns to twenty-first-century neuroscience and related fields to understand the social and psychological underpinnings of Victorian fiction. The third type, cognitive literary historicism, attempts to combine the previous two categories, with varying degrees of success. This chapter identifies the strengths and weaknesses of each scholarly approach and the barriers to entry in the field as a whole, such as the interdisciplinary skill set required of authors and readers alike. It also suggests promising directions for future scholarship, such as the study of neurodiversity in the Victorian era.
