Rachel Stanworth
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- November 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198525110
- eISBN:
- 9780191730504
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198525110.003.0008
- Subject:
- Palliative Care, Patient Care and End-of-Life Decision Making, Palliative Medicine Research
This chapter discusses the metaphors of marginality and liminality, which provide alternative ‘orderings’ or meanings to events that initially may appear synonymous. These metaphors challenge ...
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This chapter discusses the metaphors of marginality and liminality, which provide alternative ‘orderings’ or meanings to events that initially may appear synonymous. These metaphors challenge personal identity, and either can be experienced as painful. However, the liminal situation harbours a dynamic and potential that eludes the purely marginal. The potential and range of either metaphor to mediate ultimate or spiritual concerns will become more apparent as the prism presented in Chapter 6 is further constructed.Less
This chapter discusses the metaphors of marginality and liminality, which provide alternative ‘orderings’ or meanings to events that initially may appear synonymous. These metaphors challenge personal identity, and either can be experienced as painful. However, the liminal situation harbours a dynamic and potential that eludes the purely marginal. The potential and range of either metaphor to mediate ultimate or spiritual concerns will become more apparent as the prism presented in Chapter 6 is further constructed.
Walter Armbrust
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780691162645
- eISBN:
- 9780691197517
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691162645.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
The Egyptian Revolution of 2011 began with immense hope, but was defeated in two and a half years, ushering in the most brutal and corrupt regime in modern Egyptian history. How was the passage from ...
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The Egyptian Revolution of 2011 began with immense hope, but was defeated in two and a half years, ushering in the most brutal and corrupt regime in modern Egyptian history. How was the passage from utmost euphoria into abject despair experienced, not only by those committed to revolutionary change, but also by people indifferent or even hostile to the revolution? This book explores the revolution through the lens of liminality—initially a communal fellowship, where everything seemed possible, transformed into a devastating limbo with no exit. To make sense of events, the book looks at the martyrs, trickster media personalities, public spaces, contested narratives, historical allusions, and factional struggles during this chaotic time. It shows that while martyrs became the primary symbols of mobilization, no one took seriously enough the emergence of political tricksters. Tricksters appeared in media—not the vaunted social media of a “Facebook revolution” but television—and they paved the way for the rise of Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi. In the end, Egypt became a global political vanguard, but not in the way the revolutionaries intended. What initially appeared as the gateway to an age of revolution has transformed the world over into the age of the trickster. The book is a powerful cultural biography of a tragic revolution.Less
The Egyptian Revolution of 2011 began with immense hope, but was defeated in two and a half years, ushering in the most brutal and corrupt regime in modern Egyptian history. How was the passage from utmost euphoria into abject despair experienced, not only by those committed to revolutionary change, but also by people indifferent or even hostile to the revolution? This book explores the revolution through the lens of liminality—initially a communal fellowship, where everything seemed possible, transformed into a devastating limbo with no exit. To make sense of events, the book looks at the martyrs, trickster media personalities, public spaces, contested narratives, historical allusions, and factional struggles during this chaotic time. It shows that while martyrs became the primary symbols of mobilization, no one took seriously enough the emergence of political tricksters. Tricksters appeared in media—not the vaunted social media of a “Facebook revolution” but television—and they paved the way for the rise of Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi. In the end, Egypt became a global political vanguard, but not in the way the revolutionaries intended. What initially appeared as the gateway to an age of revolution has transformed the world over into the age of the trickster. The book is a powerful cultural biography of a tragic revolution.
Hans H. Penner
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195385823
- eISBN:
- 9780199870073
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195385823.003.0019
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
This chapter continues the interpretation and analysis started in Chapter 18 of the legends as “rites of passage.” The distinguishing character of the legends as such a rite in Buddhism is ...
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This chapter continues the interpretation and analysis started in Chapter 18 of the legends as “rites of passage.” The distinguishing character of the legends as such a rite in Buddhism is asceticism. The legends of Part I, Vessantara, the Buddha, and the Universal Monarch, are the test cases for the interpretation.Less
This chapter continues the interpretation and analysis started in Chapter 18 of the legends as “rites of passage.” The distinguishing character of the legends as such a rite in Buddhism is asceticism. The legends of Part I, Vessantara, the Buddha, and the Universal Monarch, are the test cases for the interpretation.
Veena Das
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198077404
- eISBN:
- 9780199081172
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198077404.003.0005
- Subject:
- Sociology, Social Theory
This chapter addresses the issue that the sacred is divided with reference to the opposition of life and death, instead of good and bad. The discussion relates this to available formulations with ...
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This chapter addresses the issue that the sacred is divided with reference to the opposition of life and death, instead of good and bad. The discussion relates this to available formulations with regards to the ordering of the sacred in Hindu ritual and belief. It then identifies three arguments that were posed in response to this issue. First, it studies the argument that the dichotomy of profane and sacred that directed the Durkheimian sociology of religion is hardly relevant to the Hindu context. Second, it looks at the argument that accepts the dichotomy of the sacred and the profane, while separating the sacred into the good-sacred and the bad-sacred. Third, the third argument states that events that are viewed as instilled with danger in other societies invite pollution into Hindu society. The chapter also studies concepts such as impurity and liminality.Less
This chapter addresses the issue that the sacred is divided with reference to the opposition of life and death, instead of good and bad. The discussion relates this to available formulations with regards to the ordering of the sacred in Hindu ritual and belief. It then identifies three arguments that were posed in response to this issue. First, it studies the argument that the dichotomy of profane and sacred that directed the Durkheimian sociology of religion is hardly relevant to the Hindu context. Second, it looks at the argument that accepts the dichotomy of the sacred and the profane, while separating the sacred into the good-sacred and the bad-sacred. Third, the third argument states that events that are viewed as instilled with danger in other societies invite pollution into Hindu society. The chapter also studies concepts such as impurity and liminality.
Patricia Hynes
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9781847423269
- eISBN:
- 9781447303749
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781847423269.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Migration Studies (including Refugee Studies)
This book establishes asylum seekers as a socially excluded group, investigating the policy of dispersing asylum seekers across the UK and providing an overview of historic and contemporary dispersal ...
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This book establishes asylum seekers as a socially excluded group, investigating the policy of dispersing asylum seekers across the UK and providing an overview of historic and contemporary dispersal systems. It is the first book to seek to understand how asylum seekers experience the dispersal system and the impact this has on their lives. The author argues that deterrent asylum policies increase the sense of liminality experienced by individuals, challenges assumptions that asylum seekers should be socially excluded until receipt of refugee status, and illustrates how they create their own sense of ‘belonging’ in the absence of official recognition.Less
This book establishes asylum seekers as a socially excluded group, investigating the policy of dispersing asylum seekers across the UK and providing an overview of historic and contemporary dispersal systems. It is the first book to seek to understand how asylum seekers experience the dispersal system and the impact this has on their lives. The author argues that deterrent asylum policies increase the sense of liminality experienced by individuals, challenges assumptions that asylum seekers should be socially excluded until receipt of refugee status, and illustrates how they create their own sense of ‘belonging’ in the absence of official recognition.
Andrew Sturdy, Karen Handley, Timothy Clark, and Robin Fincham
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199212644
- eISBN:
- 9780191707339
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199212644.003.0002
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Organization Studies, Knowledge Management
Boundaries are shown to be a core element of social science in that they capture fundamental social processes of structuring and relationality. This is linked to a debate in the sociology of ...
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Boundaries are shown to be a core element of social science in that they capture fundamental social processes of structuring and relationality. This is linked to a debate in the sociology of knowledge in the 1970s concerning the possibility and value of the knowledge of social ‘insiders and outsiders’. Following Merton, emphasis is placed on the idea of simultaneous and multiple insider — outsider statuses or identities. By drawing on recent organizational and learning literatures (e.g. Nooteboom, Wenger, Orlikowski, and Carlile), three related boundaries are then outlined — physical, cultural and political boundaries — and identified as necessary conditions for knowledge flow. Here, the importance for learning of cultural/cognitive distance between parties is introduced along with boundary contexts of particular importance to the study of consultancy — project working and liminality. The chapter concludes with a framework of boundary relations and dynamics which are drawn on in subsequent chapters.Less
Boundaries are shown to be a core element of social science in that they capture fundamental social processes of structuring and relationality. This is linked to a debate in the sociology of knowledge in the 1970s concerning the possibility and value of the knowledge of social ‘insiders and outsiders’. Following Merton, emphasis is placed on the idea of simultaneous and multiple insider — outsider statuses or identities. By drawing on recent organizational and learning literatures (e.g. Nooteboom, Wenger, Orlikowski, and Carlile), three related boundaries are then outlined — physical, cultural and political boundaries — and identified as necessary conditions for knowledge flow. Here, the importance for learning of cultural/cognitive distance between parties is introduced along with boundary contexts of particular importance to the study of consultancy — project working and liminality. The chapter concludes with a framework of boundary relations and dynamics which are drawn on in subsequent chapters.
Rosanna Hertz
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195179903
- eISBN:
- 9780199944118
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195179903.003.0011
- Subject:
- Sociology, Marriage and the Family
A generation or two earlier, Gina Schecter might reasonably have assumed that the men she was dating were both potential partners and potential fathers. However, when her latest relationship ended, ...
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A generation or two earlier, Gina Schecter might reasonably have assumed that the men she was dating were both potential partners and potential fathers. However, when her latest relationship ended, she concluded that she faced two pursuits: one for a child and the other for a partner. In her case, as in most of the women interviewed, baby came first. She found herself in a series of relationships that were going nowhere if she wanted a child. Her account represents the experiences of many women in this study who were stuck without a partner willing to co-parent. Liminality creates a new context, riskily embraced by middle-class women who seek to establish a new family life.Less
A generation or two earlier, Gina Schecter might reasonably have assumed that the men she was dating were both potential partners and potential fathers. However, when her latest relationship ended, she concluded that she faced two pursuits: one for a child and the other for a partner. In her case, as in most of the women interviewed, baby came first. She found herself in a series of relationships that were going nowhere if she wanted a child. Her account represents the experiences of many women in this study who were stuck without a partner willing to co-parent. Liminality creates a new context, riskily embraced by middle-class women who seek to establish a new family life.
Monika Renz, Mark Kyburz, and John Peck
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231170888
- eISBN:
- 9780231540230
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231170888.003.0004
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gerontology and Ageing
Dying patients cross an inner threshold of consciousness, which triggers a “threshold fear” referred to as primordial fear. Primordial fear and its two aspects—feeling forsaken and threatened —are ...
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Dying patients cross an inner threshold of consciousness, which triggers a “threshold fear” referred to as primordial fear. Primordial fear and its two aspects—feeling forsaken and threatened —are explained and illustrated in detail by case vignettes.Less
Dying patients cross an inner threshold of consciousness, which triggers a “threshold fear” referred to as primordial fear. Primordial fear and its two aspects—feeling forsaken and threatened —are explained and illustrated in detail by case vignettes.
Isaac Ariail Reed
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226689319
- eISBN:
- 9780226689593
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226689593.003.0011
- Subject:
- Sociology, Social Movements and Social Change
The introduction to part II of Power in Modernity introduces the problematic of modernity—or, to be more specific, transitions to modernity in the Atlantic world—to the analysis. In studying ...
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The introduction to part II of Power in Modernity introduces the problematic of modernity—or, to be more specific, transitions to modernity in the Atlantic world—to the analysis. In studying modernity, a useful conceptual method is to examine revolt and rebellion; when power formations falter and violence breaks out, then we see the articulation of the underlying cognitive, moral, and aesthetic orders that render politics possible. It is also possible that we will see therein new formats of politics performed into being. In moments of revolt—trouble at the edge of empire—the imagination of the state and the logistics of the state's operation come together and co-illuminate each other in the urgency of circumstances. In other words, liminality reveals regime. Conceptual points of focus for building the historical interpretations that follow include: examining the nexus of violence and alliance in the making of politics; tracing signs across zones of activity; being aware that, during crisis, emic philosophies or right explode into speech and writing, and that, amidst revolt and uncertainty, everyone is a political philosopher; and utilizing the rector-actor-other vocabulary so that it allows us to see that the politics of representation admits not only struggle and strategy, but also fantasy.Less
The introduction to part II of Power in Modernity introduces the problematic of modernity—or, to be more specific, transitions to modernity in the Atlantic world—to the analysis. In studying modernity, a useful conceptual method is to examine revolt and rebellion; when power formations falter and violence breaks out, then we see the articulation of the underlying cognitive, moral, and aesthetic orders that render politics possible. It is also possible that we will see therein new formats of politics performed into being. In moments of revolt—trouble at the edge of empire—the imagination of the state and the logistics of the state's operation come together and co-illuminate each other in the urgency of circumstances. In other words, liminality reveals regime. Conceptual points of focus for building the historical interpretations that follow include: examining the nexus of violence and alliance in the making of politics; tracing signs across zones of activity; being aware that, during crisis, emic philosophies or right explode into speech and writing, and that, amidst revolt and uncertainty, everyone is a political philosopher; and utilizing the rector-actor-other vocabulary so that it allows us to see that the politics of representation admits not only struggle and strategy, but also fantasy.
Francesca Southerden
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199698455
- eISBN:
- 9780191738258
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199698455.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This chapter considers Sereni’s treatment of the trope of liminality and its relationship to the subject’s status in the field of perception. The case study here is Stella variabile [Variable Star] ...
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This chapter considers Sereni’s treatment of the trope of liminality and its relationship to the subject’s status in the field of perception. The case study here is Stella variabile [Variable Star] and its nucleus, Un posto di vacanza [A Holiday Place]. Visual tropes are interpreted, in affinity with Lacan’s theory of the scopic drive, as evidence of where the subject falls, out of the realm of perceptual certainty, into a much more ambivalent space understood as a field or threshold of desire. Intertextuality emerges as a key component for the creation of this uncertain textual space, and Sereni is seen to model his desiring subject on Montale’s subject in limine of Ossi di seppia [Cuttlefish Bones] and Le occasioni [The Occasions]. A line of continuity is drawn between them while demonstrating Sereni’s increased negativity in this area, with the greater emphasis on absence and the impossibility of transcendence.Less
This chapter considers Sereni’s treatment of the trope of liminality and its relationship to the subject’s status in the field of perception. The case study here is Stella variabile [Variable Star] and its nucleus, Un posto di vacanza [A Holiday Place]. Visual tropes are interpreted, in affinity with Lacan’s theory of the scopic drive, as evidence of where the subject falls, out of the realm of perceptual certainty, into a much more ambivalent space understood as a field or threshold of desire. Intertextuality emerges as a key component for the creation of this uncertain textual space, and Sereni is seen to model his desiring subject on Montale’s subject in limine of Ossi di seppia [Cuttlefish Bones] and Le occasioni [The Occasions]. A line of continuity is drawn between them while demonstrating Sereni’s increased negativity in this area, with the greater emphasis on absence and the impossibility of transcendence.
Derek Hirst and Steven N. Zwicker
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199655373
- eISBN:
- 9780191742118
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199655373.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature, Poetry
This chapter begins by situating Marvell at the edge of the social, observing and withholding. It explores the contradictory dynamic of Marvell's desire to conceal on the one hand and to expose and ...
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This chapter begins by situating Marvell at the edge of the social, observing and withholding. It explores the contradictory dynamic of Marvell's desire to conceal on the one hand and to expose and divulge on the other. The chapter also shows the way in which traces of voyeurism in his lyric poetry are compounded with his drive to expose political and sexual deformities in his Restoration satires.Less
This chapter begins by situating Marvell at the edge of the social, observing and withholding. It explores the contradictory dynamic of Marvell's desire to conceal on the one hand and to expose and divulge on the other. The chapter also shows the way in which traces of voyeurism in his lyric poetry are compounded with his drive to expose political and sexual deformities in his Restoration satires.
Chana Kronfeld
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780804782951
- eISBN:
- 9780804797214
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804782951.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000) was the foremost Israeli poet of the 20th century and an internationally influential literary figure. The Full Severity of Compassion is a modular retrospective of ...
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Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000) was the foremost Israeli poet of the 20th century and an internationally influential literary figure. The Full Severity of Compassion is a modular retrospective of Amichai's poetic project. It depicts the poet's life-long struggle against all hierarchical systems of privilege and exclusion, and his search for an alternative “language of love,” as he calls it. The book explores Amichai's fierce avant-garde egalitarianism at it is expressed in a commitment to both accessibility and daring experimentation. Through a series of close readings, the book discusses issues in contemporary literary studies, always theorizing from, rather than into, Amichai's poetry.Less
Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000) was the foremost Israeli poet of the 20th century and an internationally influential literary figure. The Full Severity of Compassion is a modular retrospective of Amichai's poetic project. It depicts the poet's life-long struggle against all hierarchical systems of privilege and exclusion, and his search for an alternative “language of love,” as he calls it. The book explores Amichai's fierce avant-garde egalitarianism at it is expressed in a commitment to both accessibility and daring experimentation. Through a series of close readings, the book discusses issues in contemporary literary studies, always theorizing from, rather than into, Amichai's poetry.
Cristina I. Tica and Debra L. Martin (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781683400844
- eISBN:
- 9781683401209
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9781683400844.001.0001
- Subject:
- Archaeology, Historical Archaeology
Bioarchaeology of Frontiers and Borderlands presents a series of cases addressing how living on or interacting with the frontier can affect health and socioeconomic status. The goal is to explore how ...
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Bioarchaeology of Frontiers and Borderlands presents a series of cases addressing how living on or interacting with the frontier can affect health and socioeconomic status. The goal is to explore how people in the past might have maintained, created, or manipulated their identity, while living in a place of liminality, stuck in between worlds. The zone of “in-betweenness,” of demarcation between two or more spheres of influence, is a very dynamic and potentially violent place. This book aims to explore how different groups stuck in these zones were affected, how they interacted with the different worlds, and how they lived their lives on the “edge.” The cases presented address questions of how living on the frontier might have affected the health and disease of these groups, how conflict and violence might have been expressed, and how social inequalities might have been manifested. This volume also aims to emphasize the ways that frontiers and borderlands are liminal zones that demand a reconceptualization of many of our most deeply held assumptions about the relationships between people, place, identity, and culture.Less
Bioarchaeology of Frontiers and Borderlands presents a series of cases addressing how living on or interacting with the frontier can affect health and socioeconomic status. The goal is to explore how people in the past might have maintained, created, or manipulated their identity, while living in a place of liminality, stuck in between worlds. The zone of “in-betweenness,” of demarcation between two or more spheres of influence, is a very dynamic and potentially violent place. This book aims to explore how different groups stuck in these zones were affected, how they interacted with the different worlds, and how they lived their lives on the “edge.” The cases presented address questions of how living on the frontier might have affected the health and disease of these groups, how conflict and violence might have been expressed, and how social inequalities might have been manifested. This volume also aims to emphasize the ways that frontiers and borderlands are liminal zones that demand a reconceptualization of many of our most deeply held assumptions about the relationships between people, place, identity, and culture.
Angela Smith
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198183983
- eISBN:
- 9780191674167
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198183983.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
The haunting presence of Katherine Mansfield recurs in Virginia Woolf’s personal writing throughout her life, often as a slightly challenging phantom. They mirror each other in many ways, in spite of ...
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The haunting presence of Katherine Mansfield recurs in Virginia Woolf’s personal writing throughout her life, often as a slightly challenging phantom. They mirror each other in many ways, in spite of their evident differences. In 1920, for instance, each describes a moment of suspension which is at once a response to the natural world and an impression of their experience of writing. Fictional borders are erased in Woolf’s and Mansfield’s entries into their characters’ abjection, for instance in the horrors revealed through Septimus Warren-Smith in Mrs Dalloway or through Linda in ‘Prelude’. This book contains two chapters on abjection as it is explored in the personal writings, as well as chapters that focus exclusively on its effect on the fiction, within the wider context of an interpretation of liminality in the two women’s work. The focus as far as Woolf is concerned is on her writing up to To the Lighthouse (1917). The liminal place inflects the two authors’ version of modernism, and affects their perception of the boundaries between different art forms.Less
The haunting presence of Katherine Mansfield recurs in Virginia Woolf’s personal writing throughout her life, often as a slightly challenging phantom. They mirror each other in many ways, in spite of their evident differences. In 1920, for instance, each describes a moment of suspension which is at once a response to the natural world and an impression of their experience of writing. Fictional borders are erased in Woolf’s and Mansfield’s entries into their characters’ abjection, for instance in the horrors revealed through Septimus Warren-Smith in Mrs Dalloway or through Linda in ‘Prelude’. This book contains two chapters on abjection as it is explored in the personal writings, as well as chapters that focus exclusively on its effect on the fiction, within the wider context of an interpretation of liminality in the two women’s work. The focus as far as Woolf is concerned is on her writing up to To the Lighthouse (1917). The liminal place inflects the two authors’ version of modernism, and affects their perception of the boundaries between different art forms.
Angela Smith
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198183983
- eISBN:
- 9780191674167
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198183983.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
In an essay written in 1933, the Italian critic Salvatore Rosati celebrates what he calls Virginia Woolf’s ‘psychological impressionism’ in To the Lighthouse: ‘In the last section, in particular, the ...
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In an essay written in 1933, the Italian critic Salvatore Rosati celebrates what he calls Virginia Woolf’s ‘psychological impressionism’ in To the Lighthouse: ‘In the last section, in particular, the interpenetration of the present with past memories creates, in a dreamlike atmosphere, a continuity of psychological texture and an evocative power which shows a close relationship between the art of Virginia Woolf and that of Katherine Mansfield’. This chapter focuses on two works by Mansfield and Woolf, ‘Prelude’ and To the Lighthouse, both of which use shifts and ellipses to transform the symbolic order from the inside, using the characters’ thresholds and experience of being between borders to do it. Lyndall Gordon hints at the disruption of narrative expectations in the writers’ representation of psychological time in the two novels, which are dominated by the writers’ mothers and families, pivot on a series of thresholds and rites of passage, and are preoccupied with liminality.Less
In an essay written in 1933, the Italian critic Salvatore Rosati celebrates what he calls Virginia Woolf’s ‘psychological impressionism’ in To the Lighthouse: ‘In the last section, in particular, the interpenetration of the present with past memories creates, in a dreamlike atmosphere, a continuity of psychological texture and an evocative power which shows a close relationship between the art of Virginia Woolf and that of Katherine Mansfield’. This chapter focuses on two works by Mansfield and Woolf, ‘Prelude’ and To the Lighthouse, both of which use shifts and ellipses to transform the symbolic order from the inside, using the characters’ thresholds and experience of being between borders to do it. Lyndall Gordon hints at the disruption of narrative expectations in the writers’ representation of psychological time in the two novels, which are dominated by the writers’ mothers and families, pivot on a series of thresholds and rites of passage, and are preoccupied with liminality.
Angela Smith
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198183983
- eISBN:
- 9780191674167
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198183983.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
In an article written in 1927 for the Dial, a Chicago magazine which published fiction by Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf, the American poet Conrad Aitken observes that, in Mrs Dalloway and To ...
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In an article written in 1927 for the Dial, a Chicago magazine which published fiction by Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf, the American poet Conrad Aitken observes that, in Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, Woolf writes ‘as if she never for a moment wished us to forget the frame of the picture, and the fact that the picture was a picture’. This chapter focuses on ‘At the Bay’ and Mrs Dalloway, because both take place in a single day and pivot on liminal experience, requiring a structure that accommodates the uncertainties of liminality. The writers’ obsession with the form of their fiction is explored in the context of changes in the visual arts as, for both of them, looking at painting and talking with painters provided routes into modernity. In writing, their expression of modernity was the form and narrative voice that allowed the reader to experience the destabilizing of the symbolic order, creating not imitating the life of human consciousness.Less
In an article written in 1927 for the Dial, a Chicago magazine which published fiction by Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf, the American poet Conrad Aitken observes that, in Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, Woolf writes ‘as if she never for a moment wished us to forget the frame of the picture, and the fact that the picture was a picture’. This chapter focuses on ‘At the Bay’ and Mrs Dalloway, because both take place in a single day and pivot on liminal experience, requiring a structure that accommodates the uncertainties of liminality. The writers’ obsession with the form of their fiction is explored in the context of changes in the visual arts as, for both of them, looking at painting and talking with painters provided routes into modernity. In writing, their expression of modernity was the form and narrative voice that allowed the reader to experience the destabilizing of the symbolic order, creating not imitating the life of human consciousness.
Chana Kronfeld
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780804782951
- eISBN:
- 9780804797214
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804782951.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
Simplicity and accessibility are for Amichai serious ethical principles, guidelines for a poetic effect that are part of the fabric of everyday life, not just the mark of “a playful poet” writing ...
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Simplicity and accessibility are for Amichai serious ethical principles, guidelines for a poetic effect that are part of the fabric of everyday life, not just the mark of “a playful poet” writing “easy” verse who has “no worldview,” as some scholars have argued, mistaking his egalitarian imperative for a lack of philosophical gravitas. Poetic philosophy is revealed in the process to be a feature of stylistics as of thematics. Chapter Two outlines the major principles that underlie Amichai's poetic philosophy, focusing on the state of “in-between-ness” as the privileged yet endangered site of the poetic subjects-cum-ordinary human beings. This sets the stage for an array of systematic correlations between liminality as the governing feature of Amichai's poetic worldview and many of his signature rhetorical practices discussed throughout the book, such as juxtaposition, intertextuality and metaphor, which map two domains together without ignoring their distinctness.Less
Simplicity and accessibility are for Amichai serious ethical principles, guidelines for a poetic effect that are part of the fabric of everyday life, not just the mark of “a playful poet” writing “easy” verse who has “no worldview,” as some scholars have argued, mistaking his egalitarian imperative for a lack of philosophical gravitas. Poetic philosophy is revealed in the process to be a feature of stylistics as of thematics. Chapter Two outlines the major principles that underlie Amichai's poetic philosophy, focusing on the state of “in-between-ness” as the privileged yet endangered site of the poetic subjects-cum-ordinary human beings. This sets the stage for an array of systematic correlations between liminality as the governing feature of Amichai's poetic worldview and many of his signature rhetorical practices discussed throughout the book, such as juxtaposition, intertextuality and metaphor, which map two domains together without ignoring their distinctness.
Chana Kronfeld
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780804782951
- eISBN:
- 9780804797214
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804782951.003.0005
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
Metaphor embodies Amichai's principle of “in-between-ness” and has a significance within his poetic system that far exceeds the rhetorical. Chapter Five focuses on metaphor as the central marker of ...
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Metaphor embodies Amichai's principle of “in-between-ness” and has a significance within his poetic system that far exceeds the rhetorical. Chapter Five focuses on metaphor as the central marker of liminality, the hyphen of survival and resistance: it must never erase that hyphen, the marker of the disparate domains which it brings together (hence his preference for simile), even while it strives to make the gap between these domains productive of meaning. The ways Amichai's metaphors resist the erasure of difference critiques the vestiges of poststructuralist views, and offer an alternative model based on a historicized, context-sensitive reworking of prototype semantics. Amichai's images, while as novel and surprising as those of any 17th-century metaphysical poet, nevertheless strike us as completely “right,” as visually and experientially familiar, because of their perceptually primary basis and the extensive and rigorous mapping they provide for the distant source and target domains.Less
Metaphor embodies Amichai's principle of “in-between-ness” and has a significance within his poetic system that far exceeds the rhetorical. Chapter Five focuses on metaphor as the central marker of liminality, the hyphen of survival and resistance: it must never erase that hyphen, the marker of the disparate domains which it brings together (hence his preference for simile), even while it strives to make the gap between these domains productive of meaning. The ways Amichai's metaphors resist the erasure of difference critiques the vestiges of poststructuralist views, and offer an alternative model based on a historicized, context-sensitive reworking of prototype semantics. Amichai's images, while as novel and surprising as those of any 17th-century metaphysical poet, nevertheless strike us as completely “right,” as visually and experientially familiar, because of their perceptually primary basis and the extensive and rigorous mapping they provide for the distant source and target domains.
Joseph Michael Sommers and Kyle Eveleth (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781496821645
- eISBN:
- 9781496821690
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496821645.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Comics Studies
Neil Gaiman (1960-present) currently reigns in the literary world as one of the most critically-decorated and popular authors of the last fifty years. Perhaps best known as the writer of the Harvey, ...
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Neil Gaiman (1960-present) currently reigns in the literary world as one of the most critically-decorated and popular authors of the last fifty years. Perhaps best known as the writer of the Harvey, Eisner, and World Fantasy-award winning DC/ Vertigo series, The Sandman, Gaiman quickly became equally-renowned in literary circles for works such as Neverwhere, Coraline, the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, etc. award-winning American Gods, as well as the Newbery and Carnegie Medal-winning The Graveyard Book. For adults, for children, for the comic reader to the viewer of the BBC's Doctor Who, Gaiman's writing has crossed the borders of virtually all media and every language making him a celebrity on a world-wide scale.
Despite Gaiman's incredible contributions to multiple national comics traditions (from such works as Miracleman to the aforementioned The Sandman), to the maturation of American comics as a serious storytelling medium, and to changing the rights of creators to retain ownership of their works, his work continues to be underrepresented in sustained fashion in comics studies. As American Gods tops ratings charts for Starz, Anansi Boys can be found in radio play from the BBC, and adaptations of some of his work from Trigger Warning and Fragile Things become standalone comics by renowned artists, it seems timely to bring the bulk of Gaiman's comics into the scholarly discussion.
The thirteen essays and two interviews with Gaiman and his frequent collaborator, artist P. Craig Russell, a formal introduction, forward, and afterword examine the work (specifically-comics, graphic novels, picture books, visual adaptations of prose works, etc.) of Gaiman and a multitude of his collaborative illustrators. The essays radiate from an examination of Gaiman's work surrounding proclamations challenging his readers to "make good art'; what makes Gaiman's work unique and worthy of study lies in his eschewing of typical categorizations and typologies, his constant efforts to make good art-whatever form that art may take-howsoever the genres and audiences may slip into one another. What emerges is a complicated picture of a man who always seems fully-assembled virtually from the start of his career, but only came to feel comfortable in his own skin and his own voice far later in his life.Less
Neil Gaiman (1960-present) currently reigns in the literary world as one of the most critically-decorated and popular authors of the last fifty years. Perhaps best known as the writer of the Harvey, Eisner, and World Fantasy-award winning DC/ Vertigo series, The Sandman, Gaiman quickly became equally-renowned in literary circles for works such as Neverwhere, Coraline, the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, etc. award-winning American Gods, as well as the Newbery and Carnegie Medal-winning The Graveyard Book. For adults, for children, for the comic reader to the viewer of the BBC's Doctor Who, Gaiman's writing has crossed the borders of virtually all media and every language making him a celebrity on a world-wide scale.
Despite Gaiman's incredible contributions to multiple national comics traditions (from such works as Miracleman to the aforementioned The Sandman), to the maturation of American comics as a serious storytelling medium, and to changing the rights of creators to retain ownership of their works, his work continues to be underrepresented in sustained fashion in comics studies. As American Gods tops ratings charts for Starz, Anansi Boys can be found in radio play from the BBC, and adaptations of some of his work from Trigger Warning and Fragile Things become standalone comics by renowned artists, it seems timely to bring the bulk of Gaiman's comics into the scholarly discussion.
The thirteen essays and two interviews with Gaiman and his frequent collaborator, artist P. Craig Russell, a formal introduction, forward, and afterword examine the work (specifically-comics, graphic novels, picture books, visual adaptations of prose works, etc.) of Gaiman and a multitude of his collaborative illustrators. The essays radiate from an examination of Gaiman's work surrounding proclamations challenging his readers to "make good art'; what makes Gaiman's work unique and worthy of study lies in his eschewing of typical categorizations and typologies, his constant efforts to make good art-whatever form that art may take-howsoever the genres and audiences may slip into one another. What emerges is a complicated picture of a man who always seems fully-assembled virtually from the start of his career, but only came to feel comfortable in his own skin and his own voice far later in his life.
Edward R. Drott
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824851507
- eISBN:
- 9780824868833
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824851507.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
This book examines the shifting sets of meanings ascribed to the aged body in early and medieval Japan and the symbolic uses to which the aged body was put in the service of religious and ...
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This book examines the shifting sets of meanings ascribed to the aged body in early and medieval Japan and the symbolic uses to which the aged body was put in the service of religious and religio-political ideologies. In the Nara through mid-Heian periods, old age was used as a symbol of weakness, ugliness or pollution to contrast with the glories of the sovereign and his or her efflorescent court. Concurrently, governmental and Buddhist retirement practices called for elders to remove themselves from social, political and cultural centers. From the late-Heian period forward, however, various marginalized individuals and groups took up the aged male body as a symbol of their collective identity and crafted narratives depicting its empowerment. Although in early Japan the terms okina and ōna had been reserved for strange or foolish underclass old men and women, in the medieval period, Buddhist authors presented a great number of gods (kami), Buddhist divinities, saints and immortals (sennin) as okina, or in rare cases, as ōna. In these years literati came to enthusiastically employ the persona of the aged Buddhist recluse and early Noh theorists and playwrights sought to enhance the prestige of their art by linking it to performance traditions featuring mysterious but powerful okina. Although many of the divinized okina of medieval myth are today seen to inhabit a “Shintō” pantheon, they were, in fact, the product of Buddhist texts and arose within a Buddhist cultural milieu.Less
This book examines the shifting sets of meanings ascribed to the aged body in early and medieval Japan and the symbolic uses to which the aged body was put in the service of religious and religio-political ideologies. In the Nara through mid-Heian periods, old age was used as a symbol of weakness, ugliness or pollution to contrast with the glories of the sovereign and his or her efflorescent court. Concurrently, governmental and Buddhist retirement practices called for elders to remove themselves from social, political and cultural centers. From the late-Heian period forward, however, various marginalized individuals and groups took up the aged male body as a symbol of their collective identity and crafted narratives depicting its empowerment. Although in early Japan the terms okina and ōna had been reserved for strange or foolish underclass old men and women, in the medieval period, Buddhist authors presented a great number of gods (kami), Buddhist divinities, saints and immortals (sennin) as okina, or in rare cases, as ōna. In these years literati came to enthusiastically employ the persona of the aged Buddhist recluse and early Noh theorists and playwrights sought to enhance the prestige of their art by linking it to performance traditions featuring mysterious but powerful okina. Although many of the divinized okina of medieval myth are today seen to inhabit a “Shintō” pantheon, they were, in fact, the product of Buddhist texts and arose within a Buddhist cultural milieu.
