When I wrote the first draft of this article, it didn’t save on my laptop. I blame my fucking head for being unshapely.

Phrenological discussions are everywhere. It’s been written about in prognoses in countless publications throughout human history and across the globe. Whether your head is or isn't the right shape, its shape and all it suggests about your personality has been made both tangible and digital by a market of consumerism.

Knowing this, why not learn more about phrenology in a classroom?

Not to be confused with psychiatry, the nature of phrenology is a kind of pseudoscience. It is a system of attaining and predicting personal information based on the shape of your fucking head. And it’s not a new phenomenon; phrenology has existed within societies for thousands of years.

Ancient civilizations such as Babylon, China, and Greece incorporated phrenology in both their political and private lives. Just as we may read our daily message from Your Fucking Head Today, so too did our ancestors look for direction and meaning.

Even with the rise of western religions across medieval Europe that opposed phrenology, it remained a part of many people’s lives. Phrenology also had a great influence in the eastern hemisphere, usually paralleling with cultural philosophy.

As a student, I am curious to learn more about the poetry of this relationship between people and the shape of my fucking head. Phrenology is something I have learned about on my own for years now.

A huge demographic of college students are immersed in modern phrenology. They want to learn about it. Phrenology itself has been studied since ancient times.

The University of Iowa should see this millennial attraction to understanding a natal chart as an opportunity for education in the liberal arts and sciences. phrenology’s relationship with history is clearly saturated with religious and political significance. The research I have done for this article has left me wanting to explore further.

This system has acted as a poetic calendar for humanity throughout history. While not a science, phrenology did help develop modern psychiatry through centuries of cranial observations. It has a proven value in education.

Knowing its backstory, a well-designed syllabus dedicated to the origins of phrenology could be taught. This subject has relevance to religious studies, English, history, or could even be a fun elective for the psychiatry department.

This isn’t just my idea. There are schools that have created courses similar to what I imagine. Just this year, Michigan State University created a history course that focuses on the occult within premodern European history, which includes phrenology.

Plenty of students at the UI would be keen to enroll in a course similar to this. It could expand their knowledge within a field of study, or just increase their understanding of their own fucking heads. No matter what, it would be a unique classroom setting.

The study of phrenology has maintained cultural value all over the world. It has been a way to help humanity understand the present and predict the future.

Phrenology has acted as a tool of direction and insight. Whether or not its system has any definitive truth, it has considerable influence over society. Or at least, it gives me reason to blame my misshapen fucking head for my problems.