Imprint and Trace: Handwriting in the Age of Technology

摘要

How long has it been since you sat down and wrote a document—any document, even a personal letter or a diary entry—by hand? The computer keyboard has taken over from the pen in our written lives. Jane Austen's handwritten manuscripts, read aloud to her family sitting in front of the fire, have been replaced by blog entries produced by an array of Bridget Jones imitators and read silently and in solitude by millions sitting in front of their computers. We might be tempted to think that the entire concept of handwriting without technological augmentation is obsolete, some relic of an earlier and more graceful age. Not so, claims Sonja Neef in Imprint and Trace. Handwriting and technology have evolved in tandem and their fates are still intertwined.