Liminality and Experience

This book breathes new life into the study of liminal experiences of transition and transformation, or 'becoming'. It brings fresh insight into affect and emotion, dream and imagination, and fabulation and symbolism  by tracing their relation to experiences of liminality. The author proposes a distinctive theory of the relationship between psychology and the social sciences with much to share with the arts. Its premise is that psychosocial existence is not made of 'stuff' like building blocks, but of happenings and events in which the many elements that compose our lives are temporarily drawn together. The social is not a thing but a flow of processes, and our personal subjectivity is part of that flow, 'selves' being tightly interwoven with 'others'. But there are breaks and ruptures in the flow, and during these liminal occasions our experience unravels and is rewoven. This book puts such moments at the core of the psychosocial research agenda. Of transdisciplinary scope, it will appeal beyond psychosocial studies and social psychology to all scholars interested in the interface between experience and social (dis)order. 

Paul Stenner is Professor of Social Psychology at the Open University, UK. He is author of over 100 articles and several books including, with S.D. Brown, Psychology Without Foundations, and, with Monica Greco, The Emotions: A Social Science Reader. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and President of the International Society for Theoretical Psychology (until 2019).