Reflecting on Words and Letters from the Perspective of Embodiment, With Commentary on Essays by Daphne Lei, Susan Phillips, And Sohini Ray (From INSCRIPTION TO INCORPORATION: THE BODY IN LITERACY Studies) (Viewpoint Essay‪)‬

I. A dance ethnographer inevitably raises her hand to speak up for movement as the mediating factor in the relationship between writing and embodiment. Human movement creates inscriptions, whether with stone tools, pens and pencils, linotype machines, or computers. Orthographic systems travel through our bodies not only as symbols but as physical impulses like muscle contractions and extensions, creating complex movements and kinesthetic sensations. While European and American philosophers have long been concerned with the visual perception of movement, they have largely ignored awareness of movement sensation, or kinesthesia, as an epistemological mode. Omitted from the sensorium, kinesthesia is nonetheless a primary means by which we know, engage with, and make sense of the world. My discussion of orthography and embodiment builds upon this premise to suggest ways that language implicates kinesthesia, thereby troubling the notion of a disconnect between disembodied sign and sensate body.