Liminality and Critical Event Studies: Borders, Boundaries, and Contestation

This book explores and challenges the concept and experience of liminality as applied to critical perspectives in the study of events. It will be of interest to researchers in event studies, social and discursive psychology, cultural and political sociology, and social movement studies. In addition, it will provide interested general readers with new ways of thinking and reflecting on events. Contributing authors undertake a discussion of the borders, boundaries, and areas of contestation between the established social anthropological concept of liminality and the emerging field of critical event studies. By drawing these two perspectives closer together, the collection considers tensions and resonances between them, and uses those connections to enhance our understanding of both cultural and sporting events and offer fresh insight into events of activism, protest, and dissent.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction.- 2.What is liminality in critical event studies research?.- 3. Liminality, subjectivity and aesthetics in event management studies.- 4. Liminality and event design: liminal space design for sports events.- 5. The privilege of subversion: Reading experiences of LGBT-themed events during Hull UK City of Culture 2017 through liminality.- 6. Searching for sites of liminality in ‘giga’ events.- 7. From everyday life into the liminoid and back again: Transportation processes in the case of the World Gymnastics for All event (the Gymnaestrada).- 8. Experiencing abstraction. On mega events, liminality and resistance.- 9. ‘Sit in the shadows’: The Black body as American event.- 10. Double liminality: Fado events and tourism.- 11. Liminality and ritual order: Italy’s national elections of 2018.- 12. Events of dissent, events of the self: The liminality of protest images.- 13. Liminality and activism. Conceptualising non-conventional political participation in Romania.- 14. Crowds, Events, Eaction: Liminal Politics at the Chattri Memorial (Events, heritage and the Chattri Memorial).- 15. Egyptian revolutionary art through a liminal framework.

About the Author :
 Dr. Ian R. Lamond is a Senior Lecturer at Leeds Beckett University (UK). His work focuses on critical approaches to understanding events. His interests include events of protest and dissent, the eventalisation of the political, the commodification of death, cult fiction fandom, and graphic storytelling. His other works include two edited collections and two co-authored monographs. Dr. Jonathan Moss is a Senior Lecturer at Leeds Beckett University (UK). His PhD dissertation used phenomenological psychology to situate music festival experiences in the ideographic Lifeworld of the attendees. He is currently writing two papers: one regarding the use of descriptive experience sampling methods in event studies, and the other considering how neurophenomenology contributes to our understanding of collective and shared emotions. ContributorsPeter Vlachos, University of GreenwichAshley Garlick, University of West LondonNaz Ali, University of East LondonBarbara Grabher, Independent ScholarSeth Kirby, Anglia Ruskin University Mike Duignan, Anglia Ruskin University Angela Wichmann, Fresenius University of Applied SciencesAndrea Pavoni, University of Westminster Samuel B. Bernstein, University of Tennessee-Knoxville Zachary T. Smith, University of Tennessee-Knoxville Jeffrey Montez de Oca, University of ColoradoGeoff Holloway, Independent ScholarSebastiano Citroni, Universita’ Degli Studi di Milano Gianmarco Navarini, Universita’ Degli Studi di Milano Rasul A. Mowatt, Indiana UniversityRuxandra Gubernat, Universite Paris NanterreHenry P. Rammelt, National University of Political Science and Public Administration Susan Ashley, Northumbria University Rounwah Adly Riyadh Bseiso, SOAS – University of London