Summary
- Major: English & Education – Pack Teach
- Faculty Mentor: Dr. Justin Gifford
- Research Topic: Reading the 20th Century as Liminal Space in Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion
- New Scholar: 2022 Cohort
- Graduating with a Baccalaureate Degree: 2024
Abstract
A close reading of the novel Play It As It Lays by American author Joan Didion, with an emphasis on liminality theory and cultural context, will provide readers with an expanded perspective on how culture transitions between significant periods and how literature allows for such transitions to be observed. Liminality is a branch of literary theory that attempts to analyze cultural practices, codes, rituals, and meanings in-between aggregate structures and uncertain outcomes (Horvath et. al.). Conducting this research involves performing a close reading of the primary text as well as primary source documents and supplementary scholarly articles concerning both liminality theory and previous scholarship on Didion’s works. Completion of this research is expected to provide readers with a novel perspective from which this work of Joan Didion’s may be read and interpreted from a standpoint that emphasizes the interrelatedness of culture and literature. Not only does this work allow for the concept of liminality to be integrated into literary discourse in a new manner, but close analysis of the works of Joan Didion continues to offer readers a unique perspective on the twentieth century and how transient or liminal periods function in the scope of cultural and literary studies. Following conclusion of this study, future researchers may reference the work done here in order to further apply theoretical frameworks to the works of Joan Didion and her contemporaries for the purposes of understanding their cultural significance. Additionally, using liminality in this novel approach may prompt further use of the theory in similar texts.