Borders have become a constant topic of discussion in a globalised world: overcoming borders is seen as both a promise and a source of panic, and the assumption that borders will simply disappear in a digital world driven by abstract money is a misconception that is as widespread as it is erroneous. But borders are much more than that; in the concept of liminality or borderline existence, they prove to be an inescapable phenomenon of individual and social self-determination. In fact, liminality is constitutive for the self-experience of our own physical boundaries, for the presence of death in life, or for our heterogeneous psychological state and identity. This does not dissolve the function of boundaries as obstacles, but it does reveal that liminality is constantly changing and taking on new forms.
Wolfgang Müller-Funk shows that boundaries must be understood in terms of social psychology and only become visible in certain social constellations. His philosophical and literary search for clues leads him into the world of myth, but also into the realm of intimate encounters and into the midst of everyday life in modern societies, which are threatened with division over the question of boundaries.
Non-fiction
Wolfgang Müller-Funk was Professor of cultural studies in Birmingham and Vienna and, among other things, Fellow at the New School for Social Research in New York and at the IWM in Vienna. He is the author of numourous books. Recently published by Matthes & Seitz Berlin: Crudelitas (2022), which has been translated into English (Polity) and Russian (AST).
