SUB-PROJECTS

1. Models of liminality: a survey

All too often, comparative perspectives are lacking between disciplines and/or between theoretical positions in the humanities. A project centred on liminality needs first of all an update on the various ways the concept has been defined, a recognition of the different models that have been proposed for its study, and a reflection on their relevance to the literary field. True progress here is made possible only by a correlation that will lead either to a hybrid model or to selecting one while enriching it with insights from others.

1. A reassessment of Bakhtin’s concepts.

This will require a) explaining his terms ‘chronotope’ and ‘chronotope of the threshold’; b) laying out the difference, if any, between ‘threshold’ and ‘threshold chronotope’; c) recapping Bakhtin’s arguments as to why the chronotope can be said to provide the foundation for narrative fiction, d) or for a given genre; and e) finding answers to the questions (A)-(H) posed earlier. We need a preliminary article on Bakhtin’s chronotope of the threshold, its limitations (it is discussed almost only in the work of Dostoevsky; it proposes a categorial understanding of thresholds; it incurs in inconsistencies); we argue that the concept needs more flexibility and precision in the light of some general theory of liminality. The article will examine to what extent his insight can be revised and turned into a practical analytical tool for textual studies.
 

1. The genre of architectural fantasy.

This paper will exemplify the usefulness of the threshold chronotope concept in tackling the problem of generic taxonomy. In the face of Susannah Clarke’s seemingly unclassifiable novel Piranesi (2020), the paper will attempt to prove, through a study of its limen chronotope, that the book is no singleton, no unique work in the history of fantasy, but belongs in a heretofore undetected subgenre. This paper will complement Bermejo & Aguirre’s paper (under review) and pave the way for a reassessment of the fantasy genre.

1. Liminal chronotopes in the Work of Ursula K. Le Guin

One recurrent problem in studies of liminality is the tendency to isolate a particular instantiation as the norm, subsequently ignoring or excluding other instances as ‘not really the same thing.’ An analysis of selected works by Le Guin and others will yield a typology of liminal geographies which consistently deploy the threshold chronotope for different purposes. Research in this field is expected to prove that, rather than a multiplicity of independent, mutually inconsistent or incompatible instances, it is possible to postulate one single chronotope of the threshold scattered over a variety of texts and genres, in each case modulating its configuration and values but retaining its essential nature.

1. The limen chronotope of the Victorian Haunted House short story.

The value of working with corpora rather than with intuitive approximations to one or more chosen texts lies in that the corpus imposes its own requirements on theoretical thought rather than, conversely, allowing the theory to determine the choice of materials. On the strength of a 9-item corpus, the paper will construct a model for this genre, one that gravitates around specific forms of the limen chronotope. It will also stress the importance of historical approaches: if significant differences are found between threshold chronotopes in a given genre, they can be expected to lend themselves to analysis in evolutionary terms, as corresponding to different historical periods (ditto, perhaps, for geographical differences, as reflecting cultural differences).

1. Cartographies of Paradise.

Scholars have drawn attention to the formal instabilities of Paradise in medieval descriptions, both cartographic and written; these can be explained by reading the maps (Livingstone 2002, 5th paragraph) as a genre of narrative gravitating around a specific threshold chronotope characterised by instability. A first paper will illustrate the usefulness of viewing the chronotope of the threshold in a historical perspective, and argue that it is the liminality of the concept of Paradise that fosters instabilities; such an approach helps explain why Paradise disappeared from mappae mundi after the fourteenth century, the ‘victim’ of its own unstable traits. Further papers are expected to bring this topic together with threshold chronotopes of religion, adventure, science, and fantasy narrative.

These six sub-projects will be followed by a final endeavour to properly re-define our central concept in the light of the preceding investigations:

1. Re-defining the threshold chronotope.

This concluding piece of research will a) gather the various spatiotemporal configurations resulting from (1)-(6) and strive to formulate a comprehensive re-definition of the limen chronotope; b) resort to the concept of polythetic classification5 in order to argue that, though not always displaying the same core traits in different texts and genres, one basic chronotope of the threshold lies transversally at their heart; and, therefore, c) that the threshold chronotope, under a myriad varieties, is the cornerstone of all speculative fiction.