"Semantic Contagion"

The concept that I will bring with me the most prominently from this class will be "semantic contagion." When we think about who we are as people, we are always choosing from a range of options and there is a limit to the kinds of ways that we identify ourselves and our goals. I think it's really fascinating to think about how the circulation of an idea can change the way that an entire group of people views themselves and I think that it is something worth thinking about. Apotemnophilia will go along with this as a useful bit of cocktail chatter that will stop all the people I know who are really into body modification dead in their tracks -- because regardless of whether someone thinks that its a mental disorder in a psychological sense, it's the sort of thing that makes you stop because it's pretty wacky. The concept of "semantic contagion" and apotemnophilia also illustrates the ways in which studies and discursive constructions work to construct reality. Remember that article we read with the very limited study about a possible neurological cause? According to the wikipedia page, apotemnophilia is a neurological disorder.

I think that the debates and discussions we had about apotemnophilia really illustrated another concept that we touched on throughout the class -- which is the limits of human agency. We tend to view ourselves as able and willing to make choices and as "free." We don't often think about how we came to view ourselves that way or the ways in which the choices we make about who we are and what we want to become are always already mediated by economic factors, discursive factors, and cultural norms and developments. It's a useful thing to consider even though it gets a little unsettling sometimes.