Transgressing the Limit: Borders and Liminality in Philosophy and Literature
Borders are more than lines cutting across maps; rather, they are wide swaths of ambiguity and reversibility where identities are broken down and reassembled. To cross a border is to leave the familiar for the unfamiliar and, in the process, to transform one’s own sense of self by exceeding and changing the definitions of either side. Borders, however, are not only physical places. Concepts of limit, threshold, and border have haunted philosophical discourse since the time of the Presocratic philosophers and remain dynamic elements in the work of many Continental theorists – notably Derrida, Deleuze, and Bataille – and critical theorists, such as Gloria Anzaldúa and Chela Sandoval. Similarly, novelists ranging from Leslie Marmon Silko to Haruki Murakami have explored through their art the implications of these concepts on the world. This proposed volume intends to blur the limits of conventional studies of the border by investigating the concept from an interdisciplinary perspective, providing scholars with an appropriately multi-faceted study of borders and borderlands.
We invite analyses of philosophical and literary texts, or of liminal figures from literature or mythology—from all backgrounds including feminist, psychoanalytic, ancient, and phenomenological perspectives. We are particularly interested in work that engages in a dialog between philosophical and literary texts, and explores ways in which liminality challenges identity rooted in the binary politics of nation, ethnicity, race, sexuality, and gender. Similarly, we welcome critical theories and philosophies of ‘crossing’: being simultaneously between and among several states of existence, experiencing insolubility, blockage, and the vicissitudes of permeation at the border.
For consideration in this volume, please send a 300-500 word abstract to borderprojectabstracts@gmail.com by November 1st 2013. Include your name, affiliation, and a brief biography in the accompanying email.
Publication editors:
Dr. Jessica Mayock, Philosophy Department, CSU San Marcos, jmayock@csusm.edu
Dr. Dylan Winchock, English Department, Montclair State University, winchockd@montclair.edu