ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the original writing tool, the human hand, an embodied instrument that remains powerful and relevant in digital age. It reviews important recent research on the embodied practice of writing by hand from the neurosciences, educational psychology, and writing/literacy studies. The chapter discusses the human hand in cognition and culture generally and in writing, specifically, theories of embodiment, and literacy and haptics. Neurologist Frank Wilson documents the evolution of the human hand, its role in social and cultural life, and its relation to language, skill, and thought. Scholarly interest in the human hand is, arguably, part of a larger cultural phenomenon: an explicit interrogation of materiality and embodiment in the conduct of human activity. Mangen and her colleagues have contributed foundational work to literacy and haptics. Mangen argues that haptic perception and manual dexterity are vitally important in reading but have been neglected in research heretofore.
