Contemporary Liminality
About the Book Series
This series constitutes a forum for works that make use of concepts such as ‘imitation’, ‘trickster’ or ‘schismogenesis’, but which chiefly deploy the notion of ‘liminality’, as the basis of a new, anthropologically-focused paradigm in social theory. With its versatility and range of possible uses rivalling mainstream concepts such as ‘system’, ‘structure’ or ‘institution’, liminality by now is a new master concept that promises to spark a renewal in social thought.
While charges of Eurocentrism are widely discussed in sociology and anthropology, most theoretical tools in the social sciences continue to rely on approaches developed from within the modern Western intellectual tradition, whilst concepts developed on the basis of extensive anthropological evidence and which challenged commonplaces of modernist thinking, have been either marginalised and ignored, or trivialised. By challenging the taken-for-granted foundations of social theory through incorporating ideas from major thinkers, such as Nietzsche, Dilthey, Weber, Elias, Voegelin, Foucault and Koselleck, as well as perspectives gained through modern social and cultural anthropology and the central concerns of classical philosophical anthropology Contemporary Liminality offers a new direction in social thought.
Political Alchemy: Technology Unbounded
1st Edition
By Agnes Horvath
January 09, 2023
This book explores politics as a form of alchemy, understood as the transformation of entities through an alteration of their identities. Identifying this process as a common denominator of many political phenomena, such as EU integration, mediatisation, communism or globalisation, the author ...
Modern Leaders: Between Charisma and Trickery
1st Edition
Edited
By Agnes Horvath, Arpad Szakolczai, Manussos Marangudakis
April 29, 2022
This book considers the current striking rise of ‘outsider’ political leaders, catapulted, apparently, from nowhere, to take charge of a nation. Arguing that such leaders can be better understood with the help of the anthropologically based concept of ‘the trickster’, it offers studies of ...
Post-Truth Society: A Political Anthropology of Trickster Logic
1st Edition
By Arpad Szakolczai
November 30, 2021
It is widely asserted that we are now living in a post-truth society. What that means, this book argues, is that the contemporary global world is thoroughly infested not only with trickster figures but an entire and operational trickster logic; or, that we now live in a Trickster Land – an argument...
The Spectacle of Critique: From Philosophy to Cacophony
1st Edition
By Tom Boland
January 14, 2020
Far from being the preserve of a few elite thinkers, critique increasingly dominates public life in modernity, leading to a cacophony of accusation and denunciation around all political issues. The technique of unmasking ‘power’ or ‘hegemony’ or ‘ideology’ has now been adopted across the political ...
Walling, Boundaries and Liminality: A Political Anthropology of Transformations
1st Edition
Edited
By Agnes Horvath, Marius Ion Benţa, Joan Davison
January 14, 2020
Contemporary challenges related to walls, borders and encirclement, such as migration, integration and endemic historical conflicts, can only be understood properly from a long-term perspective. This book seeks to go beyond conventional definitions of the long durée by locating the social practice ...
The Rise of Consumer Capitalism in America, 1880 - 1930
1st Edition
By Cesare Silla
October 17, 2019
This book offers a genealogical account of the rise of consumer capitalism, tracing its origins in America between 1880 and 1930 and explaining how it emerged to become the dominant form of social organization of our time. Asking how it was that we came to be consumers who live in societies that ...
Home: The Foundations of Belonging
1st Edition
By Paul O'Connor
April 15, 2019
Questions of home and belonging have never been more topical. Populist politicians in both Europe and America play on anxieties over globalisation by promising to reconstitute the national home, through cutting immigration and ‘taking back control’. Increasing numbers of young people are unable to ...
Permanent Liminality and Modernity: Analysing the Sacrificial Carnival through Novels
1st Edition
By Arpad Szakolczai
January 03, 2019
This book offers a comprehensive sociological study of the nature and dynamics of the modern world, through the use of a series of anthropological concepts, including the trickster, schismogenesis, imitation and liminality. Developing the view that with the theatre playing a central role, the ...
Power, Legitimacy and the Public Sphere: The Iranian Ta’ziyeh Theatre Ritual
1st Edition
By Amin Sharifi Isaloo
October 25, 2018
A ground-breaking study of political transformations in non-Western societies, this book applies anthropological, sociological and political concepts to the recent history of Iran to explore the role played by a ritual theatrical performance (Ta’ziyeh) and its symbols on the construction of public ...
Walking into the Void: A Historical Sociology and Political Anthropology of Walking
1st Edition
By Arpad Szakolczai, Agnes Horvath
October 23, 2017
The book starts by discussing the significance of walking for the experience of being human, including a comparative study of the language and cultures of walking. It then reviews in detail, relying on archaeology, two turning points of human history: the emergence of cave art sanctuaries and a new...