Penultimate draft to appear in: Leefmann, J., Hildt, E. (eds.) The Human Sciences after the Decade of the Brain, Amsterdam: Elsevier. Do not quote without permission of the author. November 2015 Histories of the brain. Towards a critical interaction of the humanities and the neurosciences. Mattia Della Rocca Dept. of Civilizations and Forms of Knowledge, University of Pisa «Readily, historians of science might extend their critical thinking to today’s neuro-turn. But there is a formidable obstacle in the way: the neuro-turn itself» (Cooter, 2014, p.147) «History and neuroscience make strange bedfellows», as Daniel Lord Smail wrote in a 2009 article dedicated to the relationship between brain sciences and the dialectics of history 1 . But for how strange this partnership can appear, after the Decade of the Brain (1990-2000) and at the very beginning of 21 st century’s “big neuroscience” projects, if we look at the state of the art concerning the interaction between neurosciences and historical disciplines, we can trace no less than two yet consolidated (and still growing) research areas. Namely, these are history of neurosciences and the brand-new discipline of “neurohistory”. Either of these fields of academic expertise has to be considered properly as a consequence of the “neuro-turn” in contemporary culture – even if the first one stemmed from the long and sound tradition of “general” historiography of science, rooted in 18 th century philosophical researches, while the second one is properly a fresh development of the “neuro-revolution” that involved humanities at the end of the last millennium. In this article, I will try to compare and connect some features of both these intersections, in order to highlight if (and how, eventually) we can trace a third profitable and heuristic way to think of historical reflection in the “Age of the Brain”. On the history of neurosciences, the old fashioned way. Nowadays, history of brain and mind sciences represents an already well-established discipline. Not surprisingly, the topic has encountered a great fortune, especially from the beginning of the Decade of the Brain until now. The Journal of the History of Neurosciences has been founded in 1992, shortly followed by the creation of the International Society for the History of the Neurosciences in 1995 2 , and many other journals devoted to the general history of science and technology have consecrated several issues on topics related to brain researches in every period of the human history. Following the ascent of the neurosciences both as a consilience-aimed interdisciplinary effort and as an organized academic institution, history of neurosciences has easily gained its own place amongst science and technology studies. Notwithstanding more than twenty years of official activity, however, the field of history of neurosciences seems still involved in what has been defined as its “ancillary-heroic” phase. In other words, the field still seems mainly focused on framing neuroscientific triumphs into the chronological collection of historical recording, while at the same time looking for “precursors” of the discipline to justify and celebrate current researches in this specialty. Criticisms of history of science in its “ancillary way” have been a 1 Smail, D. L., 2012a, p. 894. 2 Haines, 1996.