In my thesis, I aim to show that a focus on liminality in contemporary Scottish fictional texts illustrates underlying developments of relevant social phenomena with regard to class issues, gender and sexual identity. The anthropological concept of liminality looks at a situation of “being between”. The liminar faces a situation of having to renegotiate their values and perceptions in order to proceed. Liminality always involves the existence of limits which have to be transgressed and against which the individual negotiates a personal situation. I further hypothesise that the transgression of limits can be seen as an instrument to create order. I take an anthropological approach to my thesis. Arnold van Gennep’s early studies on rites of passage and Victor Turner’s study of liminality originate in the observation of tribe-internal, social structures of personal development. Van Gennep assumes a tripartite structure among which liminality is the middle stage, the phase in which the initiand has to perform tasks to re-enter and become part of the community. Turner isolates the middle stage and transfers this concept to western societies. This theory is taken up and developed further by several literary critics and anthropologists. While the transgression of limits is often regarded as a violation of those norms which regulate societies, the transgression of limits in a rite of passage and connected with liminality is a vital aspect and socially necessary. Several concepts are related to this theory, which will play a major role in my thesis: Turner’s permanent liminality, Mikhail Bakhtin’s carnivalesque as well as Foucault’s transgression. In the first chapter, I contrast two of Alasdair Gray’s novels, stating that the most powerful message of social and capitalist criticism is not just visible on the surface of the hyperbolic texts, but particularly prominent in liminal passages. The theories of Bakhtin and Turner plays the most important role in this chapter. In the second chapter, A. L. Kennedy’s novels are contrasted. In So I am Glad a difficult psycho-social issue is solved by a liminal trigger-figure, Paradise is an example of the destructive and restrictive effects of permanent liminality. In chapter three, I deal with the issue of passing and an individual redefinition of gender identity. The performativity of masculinity reveals ambiguous definitions of gender and morale. The Wasp Factory portrays a form of masculinity which has destructive effects on the individual and its environment. It is the tension in the liminal situation of a gender myth, a brutally performed masculinity and the character’s biological sex which expresses a harsh criticism of society’s definition of masculinity. In Trumpet, the binary model of gender is questioned. The text suggests a different definition of identity as fluid, passing between the two ‘extremes’, formulating the possibility of a state of being ‘something in-between’. It is the confrontation with this ‘otherness’ which provokes a wave of rejection and protest in the environment of the individual passing as a member of the ‘other sex’. In this case, it is not the obvious liminal individual, but his son who undergoes a process of change and thus a process of renegotiating his strict value system. The final chapter deals with liminal spaces and how these reflect and support the internal development which the protagonists undergo. The choice of Orkney as a mystical place and the fictional setting in a war game show that liminal spaces – both real and fictitious – trigger a personal development and reconnect present day life in Scotland with historical events which have had a shaping role for Scottish and European life.

De traditionella begravningsplatserna kräver stora ytor. Urbanisering och befolkningsökning gör att detta utrymme inte längre finns att tillgå i tätbebyggda områden. Detta projekt tar sin utgångspunkt i denna problematik och de konsekvenser den fått för de begravningspraktiker som är etablerade i vårat samhälle. Projektets avsikt är att pröva en långsiktig lösning i form av en alternativ begravningspraktik med stadens förutsättningar som utgångspunkt. Detta innebär att jag föreslår ett nytt gravskick, en ny ritual samt visar hur dessa kan gestaltas.  Projektarbetet inleddes med skrivandet av en uppsats där jag undersökte begravningsritualen och den plats där den utövas. Jag utvecklade en modell för att beskriva kopplingen mellan ritualens handlingar och platsens betingelser. Modellen tog sin utgångspunkt i antropologen Arnold van Genneps teorier om begravningsritualer. Modellen användes för att analysera Sigurd Lewerentz förslag till ett kombinerat krematorium och begravningsplats i Helsingborg. Därefter tog en designprocess vid som innebar att jag formgav ett arkitektoniskt lösningsförslag. Under denna process använde jag den modell som utvecklades i uppsatsen som ett redskap för att pröva och motivera mina val.  Resultatet av projektet kan beskrivas som ett förslag på en modifierad minneslund placerad i centrala Stockholm. Av intresse för fortsatt undersökning är dels de problemområden jag identifierat i mötet mellan begravningsplatsen och den urbana kontexten, dels den metod jag använt för att omsätta den teoretiska modellen till fysisk gestaltning. / Traditional cemeteries requires large areas. Urbanization and increased population means that this space is no longer available in urban contexts. This project has its starting point in the aforementioned problem and the consequences it has had for existing burial customs.  The purpose of the project is to examine a long-term solution in the form of an alternative burial practice based on the conditions of the contemporary city. This means that I propose a new burial custom, a new ritual and show how these might staged architectonically.  The project began with the writing of an essay in which I examined the relationship between the burial ritual and its associated space. In order to do this, I developed a model which describes the connection between the ritual act and spatial circumstances. This model is based on the anthropologist Arnold van Genneps theories concerning rituals of passage. It was used to analyze Sigurd Lewerentz proposal for a combined crematorium and cemetery in Helsingborg. I then used the conclusions drawn from the analysis as the basis for a design process which resulted in the architectonic solution proposal. The model was a central tool for verifying and motivating my choices during the design processes.  The result can be described as a modified memorial park placed in central Stockholm. Of interest for further investigation is the problem areas which I have identified in the meeting between the cemetery and the urban context as well as the method I used to translate the theoretical model to physical form.

This paper is a study of female liminal developments in a selection of Grimm's fairy tales using van Gennep’s and Lincoln’s theoretical bases. An inductive technique has been used to analyze the results according to the theoretical agendas. To my help I have used Swedish translations of the Grimms’ fairy tales from 1883, 1946, 2003 and 2007. The study shows that the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales display the transition rituals identified by Van Gennep and Lincoln. Assumptions that the female characters in Grimm's fairy tales are representative of women in reality are treated in the paper as well as an analysis of the stories’ contents.

This Ethnological study, based on interviews with 8 pensioners with photography as a hobbyaims at finding the reasons the pensioners indicate are vital to them choosing photography asa hobby. The theoretical framework consists of Arnold Van Gennep’s ideas about Rites ofPassage and Gilles Deleuze’s theories of Becoming as a way to understand transitions in life.The results indicate that most of the interviewed persons seem to make a rather seamlesstransition from working life into retirement. The ones bringing their photo-hobby with themfrom earlier in life seem to make the smoothest transition of all.

In this dissertation I explore the dynamics of how the definition of the human is established and subsequently challenged in both H.G. Wells’s The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896) and R.L. Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886). Late nineteenth-century Europe was a time and place where an exploration of the definition of what it means to be human was particularly uncomfortable. The structures that upheld the then accepted conceptions of the human were under assault by new scientific discourses such as Darwinist theories of evolution, criminal anthropology and degenerationism. I show how the anxieties that these discourses inspired are reflected in the texts, and also examine how the communities in the texts act to reinforce the collapsing definition of what it means to be human. Victorian efforts to resolve this crisis of identity were mainly rooted in attempts to classify the natural world and to find or create some form of stable categorical distinction between the ‘human’ and the Other, or the not-human. The nature of the Other varied widely but manifested in terms of species, race, gender and class, to name but a few categories. The mechanisms through which humans, both as individuals and as communities, created and maintained their ‘humanity’ is examined through the use of theories of the liminal, from Anton van Gennep ([1909] 1960) to Homi Bhabha (1994). The reasons for the fear of the liminal characters are explored through Julia Kristeva’s (1982) notion of the abject – a phenomenon which arises in a confusion of the boundaries and distinctions between the subject and the object, the Self and the Other. Using Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s (1996) ‘Monster Theory’, I examine what the texts reveal about the society in which the authors were writing and what the appeal or horror of each monster’s particular type of liminality might have been for contemporary readers. In my conclusion I show that the fears and anxieties in Wells’s and Stevenson’s texts are still extant today. The monsters in the texts reflect changing conceptions of what it means to be human. By examining the nature of the fear that these monsters inspire, one can better understand both the readers of the time and the origins of the modern understanding of what it means to be human, what it means to be Other, and the realisation that, ultimately, perhaps we all exist somewhere betwixt and between. / Dissertation (MA--University of Pretoria, 2017. / English / MA (English) / Unrestricted

Den snabba samhällsutvecklingen har lett till nya möjligheter, men också nya utmaningar för ungdomar som står på tröskeln till vuxenvärlden. Livet för unga människor idag är i stor utsträckning präglat av val där idéer hämtas från den globala populärkulturen och digitala sociala forum, där detta tjänar som inspiration till att individualisera den egna livsåskådningen och identiteten. De myter och berättelser som varit förbehållna religiösa eller kulturella sammanhang och som gett upphov till tro och reflektion över livets stora frågor, behandlas under uppväxten till stor del genom populärkulturens filmer, tv-spel, datorspel, serietidningar och böcker i vår avtraditionaliserade samtid. (Partridge 2004, ss. 137–138) Historiskt och i traditionsorienterade samhällskulturer, har ceremonier och riter använts för att markera när en ungdom anses redo att ta del av vuxenvärlden. Det är ett sätt för samhället att uppmärksamma och vägleda ungdomen in i nästa livsfas och ett sätt för ungdomen att få bearbeta de utmaningar och det ansvar som kommer med den vuxna identiteten. Denna uppsats syftade till att undersöka hur en populärkulturell film skulle kunna tolkas som en modern övergångsrit utifrån Arnold van Genneps teori om övergångsritens gemensamma meningsskapande funktion och förstås genom Thomas Ziehes analyser om modern ungdomskultur. Detta gjordes genom en tematisk analys. Resultatet visar att handlingen i filmserien DET av Stephen King kunde tolkas som en reflektion av de utmaningar som framställs i forskningen om ungdomskultur och att bli vuxen. Genom att använda de meningsskapande aspekterna av övergångsritens tre faser utvanns en fördjupad förståelse för den sociala gemenskapens roll för processen att hitta sin identitet och sitt sammanhang. Filmserien DET symboliserar en fantastisk bild av vänskap och mod, men samtidigt en bild av en vuxenvärld som står utanför den känslomässiga livsvärlden som tillhör ungdomstiden.

This thesis was planned as a cross-case study of three docent-led museum tours, examined through the lens of liminality. The liminal, as identified by anthropologist Victor Turner, is an ambiguous and transitional state that is “betwixt and between” normative structures. When applied to the art museum, I argue that the liminal is a zone of negotiation that can assist in transformation and personal meaning making through a phenomenon of thought. This study centers on the following questions: How can liminal theory, as applied to museum education, illuminate the relationships between gallery teachers, visitors, and objects? And, in what ways does liminality allow for visitors’ personal meaning making to occur? These questions were answered through the planned observation of three docent-led museum tours at the Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin. Video and audio recordings, as well as observational field notes, occurred in one museum gallery and focused on one artwork, Cildo Meireles’ Missão/Missões (How to Build Cathedrals). Data was collected from narrative transcripts of the aforementioned video and audio recordings, exit interviews with docents, observational field notes taken during each tour, and observations and notes made while analyzing the video and audio footage. Two of these three tours fit within the parameters set by the researcher and, therefore, one tour was eliminated from the research findings. Content analysis is utilized in this study. This type of data analysis placed information into three categories modeled after Arnold van Gennep’s rites de passage: separation, the liminal, and aggregation. Four subcategories were subsequently discovered during this analysis: observation, connection, realization, and transformation. Conclusions determined after the analysis of this data revealed fluidity between these stages. Additionally, liminal theory illuminated the relationships between visitors, objects, and museum educators in a way that stressed that the negotiation of the artwork, meaning making, and the process of transformation are part of a collaborative journey, and that the spaces “betwixt and between” are valuable for the advancement of museum education. / text

L’opéra occupe une place essentielle dans la pensée de Luigi Dallapiccola (1904-1975). Ses deux premiers opéras, Volo di notte et Il Prigioniero, sont influencés par Antoine de Saint Exupéry (1900-1944) et Auguste de Villiers de l’Isle-Adam (1838-1889). Ces deux auteurs, fondamentaux pour l’ensemble du corpus musico-théâtral du compositeur, s’avèrent décisifs dans sa conception de l’Univers, du Parcours et de la Figure du Héros : ils annoncent une esthétique du Sacré et de l’Initiatique. En écrivant lui-même ses livrets, Dallapiccola retravaille ses sources, qu’il questionne et qu’il associe à une littérature riche. Le héros traverse un cheminement méandreux, entre ombre et lumière, rêve et cauchemar, liberté et prison. Exaltation sereine et effroi se conjuguent, mythe et religion sont investis : ils génèrent un espace sacré du héros. Les lectures, littéraire, musicale, mais aussi philosophique et anthropologique, découvrent un parcours semé d’épreuves, voyage initiatique teinté de solitude, d’angoisse et de souffrance. Le héros évolue au sein d’une triple structure, sacrée, initiatique et expressionniste. Luigi Dallapiccola construit une pensée de l’opéra transdisciplinaire, humaniste et visionnaire, qui interroge la thymie de l’Homme. / Opera is the core of Luigi Dallapiccola’s thought (1904-1975). His first two operas, Volo di notte and Il Prigioniero are influenced by Antoine de Saint Exupéry (1900-1944) and Auguste de Villiers de l’Isle-Adam (1838-1889). These two authors, essential to the composer’s whole musical and dramatic corpus, are in fact at the root of the World, of the Journey and of the Figure of the Hero: they foretell an aesthetic of the Holy and of the Initiatory. When writing his libretti himself, Dallapiccola works on his sources, questioning them and associating them to a rich literature. The hero follows a tortuous path, amid light and shadow, dream and nightmare, freedom and jail. Serene Elation and dread mingle, myth and religion are treated: they create a sacred place for the hero. The readings, literary, musical but also philosophical and anthropological, reveal a treacherous course, an initiatory journey imbued with loneliness, fear and suffering. The hero evolves in a tripartite structure, sacred, initiatory and expressionist. Luigi Dallapiccola builds up a multi-disciplinary conception of opera, humanist, visionary, which questions Man’s mood.

La direction de mémoire constitue l'une des caractéristiques de la structure formative du deuxième cycle universitaire (Master) qui la font différer de la structure formative du premier cycle (Licence). Elle représente pour les étudiants une nouvelle relation pédagogique, et il s'agit en cela d'une variable importante de leur réussite à ce niveau universitaire. La réussite de l'étudiant « masterant » semble être liée à sa capacité à se familiariser à sa direction de mémoire, c'est-à-dire sa capacité à faire évoluer son métier d'étudiant (Coulon, 1997), par la découverte du nouveau contrat pédagogique qui s'instaure au sein du binôme qu'il va constituer avec son directeur de mémoire. Le travail présenté cherche à mettre en évidence les liens entre la direction de mémoire et la réussite de l'étudiant en analysant la relation pédagogique de direction de mémoire en Master autour de trois dimensions : la dimension scientifique, la dimension institutionnelle et la dimension relationnelle. Pour cette recherche, des entretiens semi-directifs ont été menés afin de recueillir des données sur la perception qu'ont les acteurs (masterants et directeurs de mémoire) de la direction de mémoire. Ce travail permet de mettre en relief les décalages qui existent entre la perception que se font les directeurs de mémoire et les étudiants quant à leurs rôles réciproques dans la direction de mémoire au niveau des trois dimensions scientifique, institutionnelle et relationnelle. Les résultats obtenus mettent en évidence que ces décalages sont à l'origine de ruptures du contrat, initiées soit par l'étudiant (abandon temporaire ou définitif), soit par son directeur (difficulté ou arrêt de la direction). Parallèlement, les résultats montrent les éléments moteurs du processus de familiarisation des étudiants, et pointent également les difficultés qu'ils éprouvent dans ce processus. Ce travail permet d'aboutir à une réflexion sur les conditions que l'institution universitaire peut mettre en place (en particulier via les enseignants directeurs) pour faciliter le processus de familiarisation des étudiants à la structure pédagogique spécifique au Master, et in fine, favoriser leur réussite.

Thesis (M.A. (Afrikaans and Dutch))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.