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Why does the position of the threshold exert such a compelling hold on our imaginative lives? Why is it a resonant space? Why is it so urgently the place of writing – the place where one may remain, avoid speaking or naming, yet speak from? Through a combination of case studies and theoretical investigations, this book addresses these questions and speaks to the imaginative power of the threshold as a productive space in literature and art.
'The book immediately engages the reader with its flexibility and flare. Readers accustomed to academic books will be happily surprised by the freshness of these essays, which – almost without exception – combine the authority and depth of academic writing with the spirit of personal interest. It is most certainly a book for the general reader, as well as the scholar. ... Reading through, one is really able to enjoy the references, as well as the commentary.' —Isabel Sutton, ‘The Spectator’
Introduction – Subha Mukherji; Part One: Doors, Windows, Entries; 1. Windows: Looking In, Looking Out, Breaking Through – Gillian Beer; 2. ‘Zero…Zero…and Zero’: Permeable Walls and Off-stage Spaces – Jean Chothia; 3. ‘The Queer Part Doors Play’ in Nabokov’s ‘Laughter in the Dark’ – Beci Dobbin; 4. ‘Invasion from Outer Space’: The Threshold of Annunciations – Subha Mukherji; Part Two: Lives and Narratives, Territories and Worlds; 5. Unsettling Thresholds: Mignon and Her Afterlives – Terence Cave; 6. Dangerous Liaisons: Desire and Limit in ‘The Home and the World’ – Supriya Chaudhuri; 7. Writing Through Osmotic Borders: Boundaries, Liminality and Language in Mehmet Yashin’s Poetics – Rosita D’Amora; 8. Dancing and Romancing: The Obstacle of the Beach and the Threshold of the Past – Jonathan Lamb; Part Three: Matter, Mind, Psyche; 9. ‘Remember Me’ – Michael Witmore; 10. Between Sleep and Waking: Montaigne, Keats and Proust – Jeremy Lane; Part Four: Reading, Writing, Playing, Listening; 11. Reading on the Threshold – Jason Scott-Warren; 12. When I Begin I have Already Begun – Gabriel Josipovici; 13. Thresholds in Improvisation: Freedom, the Eternal Present, and the Death of Jazz – Rick Foot; 14. Thresholds of Attention: On Listening in Literature – Angela Leighton; Select Bibliography (including Discography)