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Addressing a myriad of complex social, economic and political issues in the South African context requires that we draw from a variety of voices. This postcolonial reflection draws on the work of Vuyani Vellem’s African spirituality to highlight how it can help Africans conceptualise race epistemologically. The contribution emerged out of an article presented at a conference themed ‘unthinking West. The article employed the concepts of liminality and threshold to discuss the ambivalence encountered by Vuyani Vellem and highlights how his theological convictions still present unsettling ideological aftershocks within the unjust structures of society. Contribution: This contribution is a black liberation theological reflection, which laments how Vellem did not live to witness the full realisation of his dreams regarding the liberation of the black masses. The article identifies racial discrimination and misconceptions on African spirituality as some examples of the ‘unsettling aftershocks’ regarding challenges, which Vellem confronted within the unjust structures of South African society.

Issues related to racism are still pervasive in global society; and Blackness has dominated identity politics in the South African political and public debates since the downfall of apartheid. Recently, there have been questions on whether skin colour can be used as a generalised indication of being previously disadvantaged with some arguing that skin colour cannot be used as a condition for empowerment. They argue that socio-economic conditions must rather be used as the criteria for empowerment. This contribution draws on the notions of Liminality (Turner) and Third Space (Bhabha) to investigate how the lives of three black intellectuals – Steve Biko, Tambudzo Marechera, Vuyani Vellem – resembled the ‘liminal threshold’ as they underwent ‘initiation’ on black identity. The authors conclude that despite the many years of ‘chanting down Babylon’, black people still have to contend with white supremacy in the same way that Tambudzo Marechera, Steve Biko and more recently, Vuyani Vellem, fiercely challenged it. Contribution: This study is a contribution to keeping the legacy of Vuyani Vellem alive by highlighting the notions of Liminality and Third Space to demonstrate how the lives of the three black intellectuals resembled the ‘liminal threshold’ as they all underwent ‘initiation’ on black identity in their respective times and contexts.

The notion of thresholds and their potential to suggest liminality is usually associated with spatialities. However, I contend this notion can be extended to layered temporal thresholds and temporal liminalities. I present this argument, using postclassical narratological concepts as theoretical framework, with reference to the South African artist Jan van der Merwe’s installation artwork Eclipse (2002). In this work, various spatial thresholds can be distinguished that relate to issues of conflict, mourning, exclusion, surveillance and the suggestion of death. This is achieved by means of a no man’s land experienced when entering the artwork, where the viewer-participant finds him or herself compelled to follow a footpath surrounded by barbed wire on which clothes made of rusted metal are suspended. This journey culminates in a wall that presents three screens showing rose petals being dropped, as if into a grave. Various possible places suggest themselves: refugee camps, concentration camps, war zones and a cemetery. I argue that these spatialities are made possible by temporal thresholds that accompany them. Apart from the patina of the rusted material that suggest the passing of time, the moving flower petals in the screens repeat constantly to create not only liminal temporalities in terms of the artwork at large, but also an iterative sense of the ongoing culmination of these temporalities in death and mourning. Opsomming Die idee van drempels en hul potensiaal om die liminale te suggereer word tipies met ruimtelikhede geassosieer. Desnieteenstaande voer ek aan dat hierdie gedagte verbreed kan word na gelaagde tydmatige drempels en tydmatige liminaliteite. Ek bied hierdie argument vanuit die kader van postklassieke narratologie as teoretiese raamwerk en met verwysing na die Suid-Afrikaanse kunstenaar Jan van der Merwe se installasiekunswerk Eclipse (2002). In hierdie werk kan ?n aantal tydmatige drumpels onderskei word wat telkens kwessies van konflik, bewening, uitsluiting, dophou en die suggestie van dood aan die hand doen. Dit word bewerkstelling deur die ervaring van ?n niemandsland wanneer die kunswerk betree word, omdat die aanskouer-deelnemer noodgedwonge ?n voetpaadjie moet volg wat deur doringdraad omhul is en waarop klere wat uit geroeste metaal gesuspendeer is. Hierdie reis kulmineer in ?n muur waarop drie skerms gemonteer het wat roosblare toon, asof in ?n graf. Daar word gesinspeel op verskeie moontlike plekke: vlugtelingkampe, konsentrasiekampe, oorloggebiede en ?n begraafplaas. Ek voer aan dat hierdie ruimtelikhede moontlik gemaak word deur tydmatige drumpels wat hand aan hand met die ruimtes gesuggereer word. Benewens die patina van die geroeste materiaal wat verband hou met die verloop van tyd, stel die herhalende beweging van die blomblare in die skerms ook liminale tydsfere aan die orde binne die kunswerk as geheel, en dryf ook – op iteratiewe wyse – hierdie tydsfere op die spits om ?n suggestie van die dood en rou aan die hand te doen. https://doi.org/10.19108/KOERS.86.1.2513

Qohelet is one of the most fascinating books in the Hebrew Bible because it falls outside of the confides of what it is deemed as orthodox in terms of genre, literary components and theology. Considered in both antiquity and contemporary interpretations as Wisdom Literature, the book holds rich material to be interpreted and classified in a myriad of ways. It is no secret that Qohelet is an idiosyncratic scholar whose position is defined by unusualness, to define it as defiance would be extreme. As traditional renderings of liminality are often but not always limited to spatiality and time, here liminality is defined as an intellectual exercise. The decision to locate Qohelet as a liminal intellectual is informed by the epistemology encountered in the book if the consensus is that Qohelet existed in post-exilic Israel and that the book borders mostly around philosophical themes and ideas. The aim of this article is to outline and state how, when and why Qohelet becomes a liminal intellectual. This article subsequently borrows from the discipline of anthropology to illuminate how such a position is attainable and possible through a reading of Qohelet with an intersection of Arnold van Gennep’s conception of liminality that traditionally speaks to the margins and structures of positions to how we use some of those tools of analysis to construct a liminality, which privileges knowledge production and encompasses so much more. Contribution: This article contributes to the ongoing arsenal of interdisciplinary studies which fits and embraces the scope of the journal.

In this unprecedented time, there are many questions and plenty of speculation surrounding what life will be like after the South African nationwide lockdown. There is concern over the effects that the lockdown will have on worship services when churches are in a position to open their doors to the public once more. As a result of recognising the lockdown as a liminal phase, perspectives are shared when considering how the church will gather again in a post-lockdown context and therefore a post-liminal phase. One prevailing perspective in considering this post-liminal phase involves koinonia and how an undiscriminating virus can remind those to further practise inclusivity and ubuntu, by embracing sameness and difference when ‘being church’. In contrast, another important perspective focuses on ritualising certain measures in the worship service to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), when gathering in church buildings is permissible in a post-lockdown context. This is concluded by echoing the spirit of ubuntu, namely, ‘I am because we are’, in ‘being church’ during and after the crisis of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Contribution: From the perspective of Liturgical and Ritual Studies, this article aims to contribute to the Theological perspectives of COVID-19.

Taken at face value, the book of Daniel in the HB seems to occupy a position outside the narrow confines often set in academic (and other) contexts that structure our knowledge, experience and, ultimately, the world we live in. Therefore, OT scholars are debating how this book came to be reckoned among the prophets, while in the HB, it appears in what is traditionally referred to as the writings. Furthermore, the notion of producing a unified text in more than one language (i.e. Hebrew and Aramaic) falls outside the formal, yet unwritten, expectations for literature, both modern and ancient. When one considers the content of the book, inter alia the exilic setting chosen for the book, the position(s) occupied by the main character(s) in the narratives, as well as the symbolic worlds created in the visions, an impression of a text outside, or at least at the border of, expected literary confines is gained. In this article, the concept of liminality will be applied to “explore ... the interpretive power, the hermeneutical reach of the concept” in the book of Daniel (see Gustavo Pérez Firmat, Literature and Liminality, 1986).

Yann Martel’s Life of Pi recontextualises the traditional castaway narrative’s rationalist and reductivist worldview by incorporating carnivalised writing, or the carnivalesque, to examine alternative or ‘non-human’ ways of encountering the world. It is this subversive and liberating approach towards dominant cultural forms and beliefs that is manifested in Life of Pi through grotesque realism. Grotesque realism, as defined in Mikhail Bakhtin’s Rabelais and his world, is relevant to Martel’s novel, as this convention purports that animals embody the raw physicality of existence through their instinctual and amoral nature. In the context of the novel, carnivalesque writing contributes to the blurring of boundaries between human and animal in a way that also reveals the transformative abilities of storytelling. The dissolution of boundaries that separate humans from animals and the rational from the irrational emphasises the redeeming potential in alternative – or imaginative – ways of interpreting existence and, ultimately, casts light on uncanny spaces of existence such as loss, suffering and deprivation.

Transamerica, by Duncan Tucker, released in 2005, addresses lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer- (LGBTQ-) related themes through a transsexual female protagonist, Bree. This article discusses the film as an important step in the direction of representing the complexity of gender, which, by today’s standards, is more generally appreciated. Because of its subject matter, Transamerica is a contentious film, lauded and condemned in mainstream media for how it dealt with and represented transsexual identities. Despite nominations for a number of awards, the film’s portrayal of transsexual identities was largely ignored in academic discourse at the time. I argue here that the film provides insight into the challenges, requirements, concerns, as well as the consequences of gender-fluid expression, which has been recognised in academia for years and has become a more discussed topic in mainstream society, but the manner in which the film examines these insights was overlooked. I do this by contextualising the film in terms of contemporary examples of transgender existence, which have brought the topic to mainstream discourse, and by applying gender theory concepts to the film. I discuss the protagonist’s physical and emotional journey to self-discovery in the context of the road movie trope. I then look into the protagonist’s gender performance, as well as how the protagonist negotiates this performance in the various places she visits while on the journey. I show that the film encourages open and honest discourse about gender identity and expression; the opportunity for this discussion was not taken in the year of the film’s release.

This article explores the magical realist features in André P. Brink’s novel Bidsprinkaan (the Afrikaans version of Praying Mantis) namely, the shaping of a hybrid and liminal world in the postcolonial context and the consequent effect on different religious perspectives of the Christian missionaries and the Khoi people. Kupido Kakkerlak is a representative of both these worlds. The hybrid position of a magical realist perspective containing both the magical and realist realms of religion and peoples’ daily existence and the intertwining of myth and history are discussed while the author also focuses on the specific magical realist characteristics of the text. The implicit and explicit undermining of the Christian belief of the missionaries as one of many belief systems in the world of Kupido Kakkerlak and his people seems to be one of the possible interpretations of this text. The role of magical realism in questioning and undermining one of the master narratives of colonialisation, i.e. the development of Christianity in colonial territories, is shown.This article explores the magical realist features in André P. Brink’s novel Bidsprinkaan (the Afrikaans version of Praying Mantis) namely, the shaping of a hybrid and liminal world in the postcolonial context and the consequent effect on different religious perspectives of the Christian missionaries and the Khoi people. Kupido Kakkerlak is a representative of both these worlds. The hybrid position of a magical realist perspective containing both the magical and realist realms of religion and peoples’ daily existence and the intertwining of myth and history are discussed while the author also focuses on the specific magical realist characteristics of the text. The implicit and explicit undermining of the Christian belief of the missionaries as one of many belief systems in the world of Kupido Kakkerlak and his people seems to be one of the possible interpretations of this text. The role of magical realism in questioning and undermining one of the master narratives of colonialisation, i.e. the development of Christianity in colonial territories, is shown.

Taken at face value the book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible seems to occupy a position outside the narrow confines often set in academic (and other) contexts to structure our knowledge, experience and ultimately the world we live in. Therefore, Old Testament scholars are debating how this book came to be reckoned among “the prophets”, while in the Hebrew Bible it appears in what is traditionally referred to as “the writings”. Furthermore, the notion of producing a unified text in more than one language (i.e. Hebrew and Aramaic) falls outside the formal, yet unwritten, expectations for literature, both modern and ancient. When one considers the content of the book, inter alia the exilic setting chosen for the book, the position(s) occupied by the main character(s) in the narratives, as well as the symbolic worlds created in the visions, an impression of a text outside, or at least at the border of, expected literary confines is gained. In this article, the concept of liminality will be applied to “explore ... the interpretive power, the hermeneutical reach of the concept” in the book of Daniel (see Gustavo Pérez Firmat, Literature and Liminality, 1986).

Ghost characters are a characteristic of the novels of Etienne van Heerden, but little research has been done concerning the nature and function of these ghost characters. In this article I discuss Van Heerden’s use of ghost characters diachronically with reference to the novels Ancestral voices (1986), Leap year (1993) and The long silence of Mario Salviati (2000). In order to clarify the nature of these ghosts, I use the so-called science of the paranormal as a framework. The ghosts in the three novels will be classified accordingly, and then discussed within the context of the novels in which they appear. In this way, I shall show how the ghost characters in these novels can be read as a constantly changing embodiment of Afrikaner identity (a central theme in Van Heerden’s oeuvre). Van Heerden’s Afrikaner changes with the times: in Ancestral voices the ghost characters form a collective that represents a fragmented image of the stereotypical, archaic male Afrikaner identity; in Leap year a liminal character is written in a liminal time to embody a liminal Afrikaner identity; and in The long silence of Mario Salviati Van Heerden moves away from the exclusive Afrikaner identity to a broader South African identity by using ghost characters from very different backgrounds and origins. In conclusion I shall compare these identities and the historical contexts of these novels in order to show the function of Van Heerden’s ghost characters as constant rewritings of South African identities.

In Senait Mehari se Heart of Fire word die nalatenskap van mishandeling in die kinderjare gereproduseer in die verhouding tussen die vader, Ghebrehiwet, en die dogter, Senait. Ghebrehiwet, ’n voormalige slagoffer van wreedhede, is ’n gebroke man met ‘n identiteit wat tot gevolg het dat hy sy eie getraumatiseerde kinderjare en sy ontevredenheid met Eritrea se politieke sisteem op sy familielede projekteer. As gevolg van sy psigososiale kwessies, gee hy drie van sy dogters weg aan die Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) om opgelei te word en te veg as kindersoldate. Gebaseer op traumastudies, postkoloniale teorieë asook huidige navorsing oor kindersoldaat-verhale, kyk die artikel na Mehari se uitbeelding van haar ervaringe met haar vader en later met haar mede-soldate gedurende die Tweede Eritrese Burgeroorlog. Meer spesifiek ondersoek dit die konsepte van ontheemdheid en liminaliteit, met verwysing na Mehari se uitbeelding van haar angs in die gespanne omgewing van haar ouerhuis en die opeenvolgende ‘huise’ van die verskeie ELF kampe waar sy as ’n kindersoldaat vertoef het. Met hierdie doel voor oë beskou die artikel Mehari se oneindige fobies as ’n herhalende motief in Heart of Fire.

In the first part of this two-part study, S.J. Naudé's The alphabet of birds (2015) - A hybrid between the novel and the short story, the focus was on the reception of this volume of short stories (also in international context). In this second part the focus is on the thematic node of this book and on the ways in which it is developed and repeated. The central theme in Naude's text is the depiction of displaced persons who in a postmodern world must learn to cope with bereavement. This is constituted through images of illness, physical decay and pain, alienation and insecurity as far as sexual identity is concerned. In order to arrive at acceptance, characters must undergo a radical process which entails the crossing of a boundary which is simultaneously a form of detachment. Van Gennep (1960:10-11, 21) identifies three liminal phases: physical detachment as the preliminal phase, transformation (the liminal phase) and reintegration as a transformed person. In all of the stories in Naude's book, there is only one main character. Usually there is limited room for character development in a short story, but due to the length of Naude's stories his character develops markedly. This main character is indeed transformed and at the end of the book he has undergone a process of initiation and in a sense has undergone a process of Jungian individuation (cf. Van Coller 2006:103). This process is in fact the central theme which is developed in all of the stories, but also in the book as a whole which renders it as akin to a novel and is typical of a prose cycle. In the first part of this study the possible ways to create unity have been discussed theoretically. In the second part these proposed methods of creating unity amongst stories (inter alia the succession of stories, titles, spaces, characterisation, narrative situations, structural patterns and endings) are used as a hermeneutical tool in the interpretation process. The conclusion of this study is that all of the stories in Naudé's volume of short stories are bound together in a subtle way and complement each other. "In a certain sense these stories create a secret alphabet which the reader must decipher" (Viljoen 2011:6). This rewriting almost constitutes a palimpsest with several layers that entails a creative interpretation process for the reader in order to really understand the text. This active participation influences the reader to ponder the depth of loss and bereavement. Whether the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns has erred in not awarding this book with the prestigious Eugène Marais Prize remains an open question which will only be answered in times to come. Without a doubt however, The alphabet of birds (2011), is a rich and rewarding book with nuances that only careful scrutiny and rereading can bring to the fore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Missiological Spirit as multidisciplinary approach gives particular attention to how interaction with anthropology, sociology, theology and ritual studies can transform the Church in South Africa through reconceptualising some of the key Christian doctrines in the light of liminality theory. Through the case study of 2015 xenophobic attacks in South Africa that exemplifies the affinity between public speech and public violence, the article shows how Missiological Spirit framework can inspire and empower South African Christians to respond adequately to the plague of xenophobia through consciousness raising as means to prophetically resist violence entrenched in public speeches. Keywords: Public Speech, Missiological Spirit, South Africa, Xenophobia, liminality, Kingdom of God, Eucharist Opsomming Die Missiologiese Gees is ‘n multidissiplinêre benadering tot die ekklesiologie wat gegrond is die begrip dat alles menslike kennis, insluitende sekulêre disciplines, ‘n mate van verlossende moontlikheid in hou, omdat die Gees vandie waarheid aktief betrokke is in elke dimensie van die menslike gees. In hierdie artikel veral kruis die gegewe met antropologie, teologie en studies van ritueel om aan te dui hoe hierdie dissiplines in interaksie kan tree om die Kerk in Suid-Afrika te transformer deur ‘n herkonseptualisering van sekere sleuteldoktrines van die Christendom in die lig van die teorie van liminaliteit. Deur ‘n gevallestudie van die 2015 xenofobiese aanvalle in Suid-Afrika wat die affiniteit van openbare redevoering en openbare geweld uitspel, toon die artikel aan hoe ‘n Missiologiese Geesraamwerk Suid-Afrikaanse Christene kan inspirer en versterk om toepaslik te reageer op die plaag van xenofobie deur bewusmaking as profetiese teenvoeter teen geweld. Sleutelwoorde: Openbare redevoering, Missiologiese Gees, Suid-Afrika, xenofobie, liminaliteit, God se koninkryk, Eucharist https://doi.org/10.19108/KOERS.81.1.2217

The purpose of this article is to explore some matters of liminality relevant to labyrinths. To this end, the discussion opens by considering some implications of the way liminality is defined before moving on to an examination of labyrinths in terms of their two- or three-dimensionality. The liminal implications of these labyrinths as designs and structures are then discussed in some detail, together with their symbolic/metaphorical aspects. In the course of this discussion, a taxonomy of the labyrinth walking process is presented. The article concludes with a brief consideration of the liminal significance of the Knossos Labyrinth’s location on the island of Crete.

In this article it is demonstrated why and how liminality has developed into a key concept in Practical Theology, in particular in Liturgical Studies. Liminality began its voyage at the beginning of the 20th century as indication of the phase “betwixt and between” distinguished social and spatial stages in rites of passage (Van Gennep, 1960). Among its defining qualities were autonomy and in-stability. In the sixties it developed into a more permanent state, in which “communitas” could come into being as a marginal form of human interrelatedness (Turner, 1995). In the network society of the 21st century liminality has accomplished its journey by moving to the centre of society, pushing structured human interrelatedness to the “margin”, or more precisely to the local, regional, national or categorical (religious, gender, sexual preference, etc.) domain (Castells, 2000a; 2004; 2000b). Hu-man society is built around a centre of the stability of the unstable. This also holds for Christian faith and for liturgy. Christian ritual is performed across (worldwide) networks and in independent groups and churches by anyone who chooses to do so. There is no liturgical elite anymore; it is principally a popular move-ment characterised by “plural authority structures”. The acade-mic heuristic power of liminality is finally demonstrated in two liturgical cases.

Parody as hybridic text: research report Parody can be seen as one of the techniques of selfreferentiality through which a consciousness of the context dependency of meaning is revealed in an aesthetic way. This article explores the theoretical background of parody as literary style against which the researcher challenged a group of teacher education students in a research programme to generate their own parodies. The task required that they choose a well-known fairy tale and use its structure to mock their own society. Students of another group were asked as the writers’ peers to read the stories in order to engage in a dialogue between encoder and decoder in the process of reception. The educational aim of the programme was to equip students to reflect critically and react creatively to social, political and economic issues that surround them. Furthermore, the researcher wanted to discover how these texts would generate a flexibility, fluency and hybridity in relationship with the students’ cultural identity and how they would project their own liminality in a no-man’s land between youth and adulthood. Analysis and interpretation of the parody texts revealed themes of late capitalism, materialism and consumerism, as well as typical student cultural manifestations of language usage and some of their existing attitudes toward the South African political society in post-apartheid. The students’ parodies have intertextual density with imitation and subversion of the original text contexts and values. The writers used a variety of stylistic techniques to generate double-voiced narratives as manifestation of literary creativity.

In this article the concept of liminality is understood in a broad sense to mean the incompleteness of historical representation and the restrained view of reality. The ensuing discussion of the theme will be divided into three parts; each incorporating parts of Paul Ricoeur’s analyses in “The reality of the historical past” (1984). Ricoeur investigates the reality of the historical past under three categories – the Same, the Other, and the Analogue. Under the sign of “the Same”, contesting liminality is first discussed as the re-enactment of the historical past. This re-enactment of the past, however, has differences in the present on account of imaginative reinterpretations and repatternings of documentary evidence. Under the sign of ”the Other”, the second part or the article discusses Naipaul’s strategy of taking distance to counteract liminality in rewriting the historical past from the vantage point of a writer-traveller. Finally, the analysis under the sign of “the Analogue” points out that the commitment to combat liminality implies an unending attempt at rectifying and reconfiguring the historical past in order to accomplish continuity and renewal.

'I am becoming someone completely different …': the utilisation of liminality in Vaselinetjie (Little Vaseline) by Anoeschka von Meck The concepts of liminality, transition and borders are utilised extensively in “Vaselinetjie” by Anoeschka von Meck (2004). This is especially the case regarding her use of characterisation, focalisation, time and space (including place and landscape) in the construction of identity. As a liminal character, Vaseline finds herself in different kinds of liminal spaces on a regular basis, like the children’s home, which is foregrounded in the novel, as well as in consecutive preliminal, liminal and postliminal phases. The children’s home is an essentially liminal space, but from the perspective of Vaseline it is firstly gradually transformed into a place to which meaning is attached, and secondly to a landscape of belonging, as she expresses her solidarity with the scorned group of children in the home. On the one hand the children’s home is characterised by a certain liminal essence, but on the other hand it can be regarded as “a realm of pure possibility” (Turner, 1967:97).

Distance and experience/endurance: liminal spaces and survival in Ingrid Winterbach’s Niggie (Cousin) In this article aspects of Ingrid Winterbach’s novel, “Niggie” (“Cousin”), which is set against the backdrop of the last months of the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) are analysed. The geographical (spatial) and psychological isolation of the characters and the influence of the historical situation on the psyche of the characters are discussed. Special attention is paid to the relation of the characters to nature. The main characters seem to find themselves in a series of liminal situations. The war experiences force them to accept the inevitable, but also to find ways and means to transcend personal and collective trauma. Though they do change irrevocably and have to exploit their own creativity and psychological resources to the utmost, they do survive and eventually continue their lives under more normal circumstances. The novel explores the experience of trauma and the possibility and quality of survival, but the sensitive analysis of the human aspects of the specific historical circumstances has a wider resonance – so that the novel can be regarded as a historical novel about the future.

Wilderness and desert: environmental forces against man’s in Boendoe and Toewaaisand In Chris Barnard’s “Boendoe” (1999) and Christoffel Coetzee’s “Toewaaisand” (2003), the relationship between man and nature is stressful. This article investigates the nature and intensity of the characters’ experience of and reaction to geographical isolation and natural environmental crises and forces in the novels. In both novels evidence of heightened interdependency between the characters is found, but also a degradation of social and communication skills and disillusionment regarding the inability to create and maintain meaningful relationships. Surrounding environmental circumstances and events lead to trauma and exhaustion in the characters from “Boendoe” and experiences of the disruption of life, isolation and estrangement of loved ones in “Toewaaisand”. Findings from within psychology are applied in this article to conjoin the experiences of characters and individual narratives with the general, human inclination to indicate relevance within the reader’s life. In both novels the influence of natural environmental factors is related to the development of liminal fields of experience. The characters experience the phases of “separation” and “limen” in Turner’s transformation model, but this is not followed by the experience of “reincorporation”. Opposed to the creativity that is usually linked with liminality, in these novels a destructive process is taking place: liminality without a hopeful or constructive prospect.

Writing takes place in wrestling the self down: strategies of reconciliation in Kleur kom nooit alleen nie (Colour never comes on its own) by Antjie Krog One of the central themes in “Kleur kom nooit alleen nie” (2000), a volume of poetry by Antjie Krog, is the reconciliation between people of different races and political orientations. Krog regards reconciliation through the medium of language and the poem as the task of the poet. In the volume under discussion these actions often take place within the liminal zone. The speaking “I” goes “underground” in the isolated space far from the centre, in order to consider ways in which people can co-exist in new, peaceful relationships. The destabilisation of textual stability by stressing the ambiguous meaning of words is a transgressive action, implying a rethinking of the meaning of words in order to aid reconciliation. Speaking abjection, the liminal action where traumatic events are made public in an attempt to reconcile with the past, is an important modus operandi in some of these poems. It therefore seems as if the liminal zone offers fertile space to the poet to think about and reconsider reconciliation and peaceful coexistence.

This article argues that the transcendent power of the imagination represented by literature and novels in particular, has played a major role in aiding societies to confront and deal with specific social and political realities in a multicultural global society. The fact that novels represent the development of fictional characters in time and space, enables the reader to experience the lives of the protagonists in a vicarious fashion. In fact, the concept of liminality (with regard to the different stages of separation, transition and re-integration into society) is emulated in the reading process. The interstitial space provided by liminality is especially pertinent to postcolonial novels such as “The bone people” by Keri Hulme. In this novel Hulme illustrates how fictional characters, in an individual and social sense, have to experience “rites of passage” in order to come to terms with traumatic changes in their lives and cultures. In a different way and with the bigoted South African apartheid society (including the reader) as target, Vladislavic exploits the power of the imagination to launch a subtle, yet stringent critique on people who lack imagination and consequently fail to use it constructively in order to transcend their narrow-minded reality – similar to Patrick White in his condemnation of restrictive social conventions in Australian society in his novel “Voss”.

This paper considers Ishiguro’s novel in the context of Victor Turner’s work on pilgrimage, and seeks to interrogate the apparently fixed opposition between the structural rigidity of Stevens’s position (his situation in the passage as an index of his situation as butler) at Darlington Hall and the liminal anti-structure of Stevens’s journey (in passage). The article will then offer some speculation about how the novel’s thematic preoccupations are underscored by liminal narrative techniques. This intimate relationship between content and form is reflected, in particular, in the structure and title of the text.

Beacons, thresholds and webs: Theology as creative endeavour. This article argues from the premise that theology is a creative undertaking. Nothing can be thought about God other than by thinking about people’s experience and understanding of God. Theology therefore speaks objectively about God from the subjective experience of God and from testimonies about that experience. Such reflections and testimonies are expressed in language. However, the inherent constraints of vocabulary and formulation render any linguistic expression of such spiritual encounters incomplete. Theology is always seeking for new possibilities of expression in order to overcome the constraints. It stands to reason that the figurative mode of expression will be preferred to the concrete or factual register of language because figurative language is more suited to articulate the elusive spiritual experience of meeting God through faith. Signposts, thresholds and webs are employed here as metaphors to emphasise the creative aspect of theology within the context of a changing world. They represent the three phases in the so-called rites of passage described by anthropologist Arnold van Gennep and refined by Victor Turner into an abstract model employed in the understanding of all similar experiences of ritual transference. Here the model is applied to the church and its theology.

Copyright of Literator is the property of African Online Scientific Information System PTY LTD and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Literator is the property of African Online Scientific Information System PTY LTD and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Literator is the property of African Online Scientific Information System PTY LTD and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Literator is the property of African Online Scientific Information System PTY LTD and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Literator is the property of African Online Scientific Information System PTY LTD and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Literator is the property of African Online Scientific Information System PTY LTD and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)