This book is an antidote to the polarised thinking of our time. It is a journey along the threshold edge of things: thresholds of ideas, body, mind, mindfulness, environment, society, identity, belief, ritual, architecture, theatre, writing, landscape, life, death, and time. They are everywhere.
This middle ground is not dull and indifferent, but the dynamic point of difference and exchange. Interaction and differentiation are both in this liminal boundary.
We inter-are with so many things. That which separates also connects. Threatening. Enticing. Fuzzy. The twilight zone. The grey between the black-and-white. The point where we realise that the map is not the territory. Where our ideas, ideals, and idols clash with the real.
Nick Hanks works as a landscape archaeologist and half of ‘Time and Tide Taletellers’ storytelling duo. Nick studied drama at Warwick University and archaeology at Bristol University. He has lectured and written academically on ritual space and archaeology. He lives in Cornwall (UK). You can find him at nick-hanks.co.uk
Praise for Thresholds
This is a gentle yet provocative and challenging book, encouraging us to see the world through a fresh lens, a work firmly embedded in an embodied and phenomenological approach. It draws upon a range of different approaches, yet is fundamentally an intriguing work of anthropology seen through the eyes of a very gifted observer of humans and nature. Readers will find this an accessible and approachable read, and Nick Hanks is a wonderful guide through the complexities of human engagements with the physical and natural worlds.
~ Professor Niall Finneran, University of Winchester
Contents
- About the Author
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword by Professor Niall Finneran
- ‘Magnificent Octopus’ – how to read this book
- Threshold – the idea of the edge
- Abstract Thresholds
- Vesica Piscis – the symbol of threshold
- Embodied Cognition – metaphor is the foundation of thought
- Embodied Metaphor – the container
- Physical Thresholds
- The Single Cell – the primal container and threshold
- Species – the leaky DNA container
- Thresholds of the Earth – where life thrives
- Body-World – your physical threshold
- Mental Thresholds
- Mind and World – your conscious threshold
- Mindfulness – the thresh-hold
- Social Thresholds
- ‘Getting’ the Edge – in minds and organisations
- Self and Others – transaction, separation, reflection
- Freedom – free to, free from, free-fall
- Us and Them – fear and desire
- Spatial and Spiritual Thresholds
- Liminal Landscapes – places of discard and discord
- Pilgrimage – walking as threshold
- Myth and Story – the threshold of adventure
- Liminality in Ritual – when the edge becomes the centre
- Beyond Geometry – the experience of architecture
- Experiencing Geometry – the subtle thresholds of space
- Building Thresholds – doors, gateways and portals
- Religious Buildings – containing and extending the edge
- Religious Worship – holy counters for encounters
- Temporal Thresholds
- Life – in two halves linked by a fall
- Death – the threshold that awaits
- Time – the ever-moving threshold
- Dawn and Dusk – the threshold of day
- Thresholds of this Book
- Afterwords
- Bibliography
Coming soon!