Description
Recent and current crises in health, ecology, society and spirituality have lent the whole arena of liminality a new urgency and relevancy. Those who traverse the great transitions are rediscovering new ways of interpreting life through the liminal lens, a way to make sense of the great voluntary and unchosen transitions that characterize modern life.
This anthology provides a unique overview of liminality as it gathers a diverse coterie of authors, disciplines, and contexts to explore its many facets. Distinct in its interdisciplinary approach, The Liminal Loop serves as an important source book for general readers, teachers, students, artists, counselors, spiritual guides, and social transformers.
From liminal poetry and musical traditions to the strange vertical world of the rock climber, The Liminal Loop explores the swirling chaos on the other side of critical thresholds and suggests a pathway through the daunting middle passages of the in-between. With what can only be described as courage, the many authors of this collection dare to look uncertainty in the eye, knowing that this is a necessary journey, and that it is better to travel with a common band of pilgrims than to go it alone.
About the Author
Timothy Carson is a pastor, curator of TheLiminalityProject.org, co-founder of The Guild for Engaged Liminality, and teaches in the Honors College of the University of Missouri. He is the author of Liminal Reality and Transformational Power (The Lutterworth Press, 2016), editor of Neither Here nor There: the many Voices of Liminality (The Lutterworth Press, 2019), and co-author of Crossing Thresholds: A Practical Theology of Liminality (The Lutterworth Press, 2021).
Contents
Acknowledgements
Foreword / Carrie Newcomer
Introduction / Timothy Carson and David McGee
1. The Path of Initiation / Timothy Carson and Suzan Franck
2. Wayfinding to Freedom / Lisa R. Withrow
3. Liminality and the Event / Jonathan Best
4. The Body Leads the Way / Mary Lane Potter
5. Extreme Liminalities that Shape Us / Timothy Carson
6. Seven Practices for a Liminal Age / Justine Huxley
7. Unknownland, Blackness and Liminality / Phil Allen, Jr.
8. Liminal Dimensions of Education Abroad / Gabrielle Malfatti
9. Unending Liminality / J.D. Bowers
10. Liminal Pathways to Healing / Elizabeth Coombes and Kate Weir
11. Radical Uncertainty in a Time of Transition / Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
12. The Art of Liminality / Júlia Coelho, Louise Fago-Ruskin, Mary Farrell, Jenny McGee, and Katie Potapoff
Conclusion / Timothy Carson
Contributors
Bibliography
Index
Endorsements and Reviews
In times of restlessness and transition, being poised on a threshold is almost inevitable and can be deeply unsettling. Carson’s wide-ranging volume grounds these tumultuous periods, embedding them with depth and meaning. The carefully selected contributors offer diverse, thoughtful voices, guiding the reader into new ways of thinking.
Laura Hobgood, Elizabeth Root Paden Chair in Religion and Environmental Studies, Southwestern University
Far from a straight-line shot ‘from cradle to grave,’ life bends back on itself. These moments of bending, of cusp and transition, deepen our experience, calling forth ritual and aesthetic engagement. The Liminal Loop is an anthology rich in contemplative reflection on the human condition and the bends in our personal and collective paths.
Barry Stephenson, Professor of Religious Studies, Memorial University, Newfoundland
Rarely has a subtitle to a book hit the nerve so precisely. We are offered a glimpse through the liminal lens to make sense of the dangers and potentialities of human transformation, and how to respond to them. As rock climbers. Enslaved and liberated bodies. Teachers. Artists. Healers. As human beings.
Bjørn Thomassen, Professor of Social Science, Roskilde University and author of Liminality and the Modern’
