More thoughts on memory, body, etc. Jessica asked about:

"Is that true? What about investigations into Alzheimers? Or--the loss of normal memory? Also into how one learns--that's research into memory."

There's certainly been work done on different ways of learning.... It might have to do with the way the research is classified--"gestural" or "bodily" are terms most frequently used with PTSD. Surprise.

And her idea that:

"memory is arche-writing. arche-writing is violent. violence is traumatic. thus all memory is traumatic."

Yes. Violence and pain play an important role in subject formation (I'm more up on my psychoanalytic theory than Derrida). Actually, I find it helpful to go back to Freud when thinking about actual bodies and how they might connect to language and subjects. He talks a lot about how physical pain helps us become aware, literaly, of where our bodies begin and end.

Mmm.

This is kind of gross, but I remember once asking my mother if it would hurt if I peeled off a piece of dry skin and then bit it. I wasn't sure if I would still be able to feel the skin when it was detatched from my body.