Performing Phrenology: The Theatrical Roots of a 19th-Century Science asks how interactions between scientists and theatre professionals influenced the development and dissemination of phrenology, one of the most popular (and troubling) scientific fields of the 19th century. In turn, it considers how phrenologists shaped 19th-century performance culture when they brought the casts and skulls of a diverse range of human subjects, including child prodigies, criminals, disabled men and women, and racialized peoples, onto the lecture stage.