Experience on the Edge: Theorizing Liminality

Brady Wagoner is Professor of Psychology and Co-Director of the Centre for Cultural Psychology at Aalborg University as well as Professor II at Bjørknes Høyskole. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge, where he also co-created the F.C. Bartlett Internet Archive. He is associate editor of the journals Culture & Psychology and on several editorial boards. His research focuses on the cultural and constructive dimensions of the mind, particularly in relation to memory, imagination and social change. His most recent books include The Constructive Mind: Bartlett’s Psychology in Reconstruction (Cambridge University Press, 2017), Handbook of Culture and Memory (Oxford University Press, 2018) and The Psychology of Radical Social Change with Fathali Moghaddam and Jaan Valsiner (Cambridge University Press, 2018). He has received two early career awards from the American Psychological Association (divisions 24 and 26) and has been a research fellow at the Institutes for Advanced Studies in Lyon, Madrid and Amsterdam.  Tania Zittoun is professor at the Institute of psychology and education at the University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland). She develops a sociocultural psychology of the lifecourse, with a specific focus on transitions, the role of institutions and the dynamics of imagination. Her theoretical work is in dialogue with psychoanalysis and the critical social sciences. Her current empirical work addresses mobility as well as ageing. She is Associate Editor of Culture & Psychology, and her last books are Human development in the lifecourse. Melodies of living (with Jaan Valsiner, and four other colleagues, CUP, 2013), Imagination in Human and Cultural development (with Alex Gillespie, Routledge, 2016) and the Handbook of culture and imagination (OUP, 2018, co-edited with Vlad P. Glaveanu).

• Foreword; Introduction.- Part I. Innovations in Psychology lecture.- 1. Theorizing Liminality between art and life: The liminal sources of cultural experiences—Paul Stenner; Part II. Commentaries and extensions.- 2. From liminalities to limbo: thinking through semiotic elaboration.- 3. On/At the Edges of Liminality: Analytic extensions.- 4. Moral Holidays: The cases of expatriates and nightlife tourists.- 5. On the Way: Pilgrimage and liminal experience—Zachary Beckstead.- 6. Liminality in play: The role of materiality and patterns.- 7. Maintenance Art: Paul Stenner’s liminality and the case of older caregiving spouses.- 8. Art therapy as a liminal, playful space: Patient experiences during a cancer rehabilitation program—Roessler, Hvidt, laCour, Mau, Graven & Assing Hvidt.- 9. “I must have contracted swine flu, bird flu or Ebola.”: How patients and general practitioners negotiate liminality during consultation.- Part III. Concluding response.- 10. A feast of liminal experiences and expression.