Skip to main content
Kent Academic Repository

Thomas Hardy and the Value of Brains

Lyons, Sara (2020) Thomas Hardy and the Value of Brains. Victorian Literature and Culture, 48 (2). pp. 327-359. ISSN 1060-1503. E-ISSN 1470-1553. (doi:10.1017/S1060150318001572) (KAR id:68534)

PDF Author's Accepted Manuscript
Language: English


Download this file
(PDF/671kB)
[thumbnail of VLC revise.pdf]
Request a format suitable for use with assistive technology e.g. a screenreader
XML Word Processing Document (DOCX) Author's Accepted Manuscript
Language: English

Restricted to Repository staff only
Contact us about this Publication
[thumbnail of VLC revise.docx]
Official URL:
https://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1060150318001572

Abstract

This article reads Thomas Hardy’s The Woodlanders (1887) and Jude the Obscure (1895) as ambivalent responses to the new conception of human intelligence which emerged from Victorian psychology and evolutionary theory and which formed the basis of what I describe as the Victorian biopolitics of intelligence. Although these novels reflect Hardy’s endorsement of the new biological model of intelligence, they also register his resistance to what many late Victorians assumed to be its corollary: that mental worth can be an object of scientific measurement, classification, and ranking. I suggest that the work of the philosopher Jacques Rancière illuminates the extent to which these novels challenge the scientific reification of intellectual inequality and attempt to vindicate overlooked and stigmatised forms of intelligence.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1017/S1060150318001572
Uncontrolled keywords: Thomas Hardy; intelligence; The Woodlanders; Jude the Obscure
Subjects: P Language and Literature > PR English literature
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Arts and Humanities > School of English
Depositing User: Sara Lyons
Date Deposited: 10 Aug 2018 09:31 UTC
Last Modified: 09 Dec 2022 01:18 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/68534 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

  • Depositors only (login required):

Total unique views for this document in KAR since July 2020. For more details click on the image.