Today, writing by hand seems a nearly archaic process. Nearly all of our written communication is digital-our letters are via email or text message, our manuscripts are composed using word processors, our journals are blogs, and we sign checks to pay bills with the push of a button. Sonja Neef believes that what we have lost in our modern technological conversation is the ductus-the physical and material act of handwriting. In Imprint and Trace Neef argues, however, that handwriting throughout its history has always been threatened with erasur