The Poetics of Liminality: The Poet and the State

Consciousness, War, Exile, and the In-Between

Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association (RMMLA) 2026
Conference Dates: October 8–10, 2026
Location: Marriott Courtyard, Ogden, Utah

Contact: stacy.stingle@gmail.com

In Stefan Zweig’s The Struggle with the Daemon, he tells us “The poet, possessed by his daemon stood ever in vacant spaces and created in the void.” Zweig defines the daemon as “the unrest that is in us all, driving each of us out of himself into the elemental.”

And, in The Future of Nostalgia, Svetlana Boym tells us that “Outbreaks of nostalgia often follow revolution.” Boym defines nostalgia as “a longing for a home that no longer exists or has never existed. Nostalgia is a sentiment of loss and displacement.”

If we read Zweig’s idea of the daemon as a muse that possesses one to create in context with what Boym tells us about the relationship between nostalgia and Revolution, we encounter a kind of exiled, in-between space, fused by sensations of loss, rupture, fleeting magic and imaginings, disrepair, chaos and creation.  Time seems to pause amidst the rupture and the space after Revolution. What are these vacant unseen spaces that produce the creation of the seen? Why is the poet so possessed to create there? Why does the daemon come to him in his desperate hours? Why, and what does he create from these disaster sites, these spaces of ruins, of remnants, disparate parts, and their in-between space? —And what is their relationship to Time, the experience of its passing, its stagnation, and our desperation to either return to some past place or, through their space of liminality, to go somewhere else?

When we think of these liminal, in-between spaces, we think of the entryways, exits, corridors, mirrors, magic wardrobes, Wonderland, Neverland, Herman Hesse’s Magic Theater, where the “Entrance is not for Everyone but For Madmen Only!” These are spaces of nostalgia. Exiled spaces where in-between is a place we cannot return—lost childhood, old identities, lost loves, former ways of being, in essence—a home to which we cannot return. Yet something remains.

This panel is interested in papers examining the poetics of liminal spaces, the space of the in-between, of fractured consciousness as seen in trauma, testimony, memory, and recovery—but also the transitory spaces of the everyday that we resituate after the event—be it war, revolution, occupation, transformation, and exile. This panel welcomes papers that ask and answer questions about liminality and creation, revolution and nostalgia, Time and memory, and about the role of the Poet who, through his daemon, uses language to describe and bring back to us the story of these in-between spaces. What is the relationship between the unpresentable and representation? Can we represent what does not present?

Proposals for presentations no longer than twenty minutes should include a title, your name and affiliation, and a 250- to 400-word abstract. Please send submissions to stacy.stingle@gmail.com for The Poetics of Liminality panel by April 30 2026.

deadline for submissions: 

April 30, 2026

full name / name of organization: 

RMMLA

contact email: stacy.stingle@gmail.com

RMMLA 2026 – Call for Papers
The Poetics of Liminality: The Poet and the State
 
Consciousness, War, Exile, and the In-Between

Liminal Spaces

Revolution, occupation, and exile

War, revolution, and literature

Philosophy and Literature

Existentialism

Politics and Literature

Trauma, memory, and narration

Nostalgia and modernity

Modernism and fractured consciousness

Avant-garde

Experimental art and other forms grounded in liveness and co-presence

This panel is interested in papers examining the poetics of liminal spaces, the space of the in-between, of fractured consciousness as seen in trauma, testimony, memory, and recovery—but also the transitory spaces of the everyday that we resituate after the event—be it war, revolution, occupation, transformation, and exile. This panel welcomes papers that ask and answer questions about liminality and creation, revolution and nostalgia, Time and memory, and about the role of the Poet who, through his daemon, uses language to describe and bring back to us the story of these in-between spaces. What is the relationship between the unpresentable and representation? Can we represent what does not present?

Submission Details
Abstract: 250 words
Bio: 100 words
Deadline: April 30, 2026
Send to: stacy.stingle@gmail.com
Panel: The Poetics of Liminality: The Poet and the State RMMLA 2026
Conference Dates: October 8-10, 2026
Location: Marriott Courtyard, Ogden, Utah