Dear Reader,

The word “liminal,” which I can’t help but think of as epitomizing the small-liberal-arts humanities classroom, can feel at times like an almost comical buzzword. And yet there seems to be a reason it worms its way into every conversation with frustrating relevance—it has felt applicable in too many situations to count, academic and not. The in-between spaces, the thresholds, the portals, the gates, the transitions.

As we come to the one-year anniversary of the first COVID-19 related shutdowns in the U.S., I chide myself for still thinking of the past year of quarantine and isolation as one of those liminal spaces. I know that for me (and I believe for many),time has warped beyond recognition during the past 11 months. So much of that time has felt like waiting, but I have to remind myself that a year in limbo is no less of a year. And though I have often defined a liminal space in the negative—that is, a space that is neither this nor that—it’s starting to feel necessary to think in the positive, too: both this and that. With the articles in this issue, I can start to think of the liminality occupying space between both/and and neither/nor.

These pieces tackle false binaries and prod at the places seemingly oppositional forces converge. Anya Steinberg looks at the ways in which Indigenous activists are resisting the continuing legacies of colonialism, as ground on a new pipeline is broken while a federal appeal is pending. Maya Rajan’s profile on Alex Ocken recounts with grace the ways in which the past shapes but does not limit the future. Bergen Hoff’s piece asks us to step into the end of a life where death is always present. Annalise Groves writes of a bike trip across the country, moving between people and landscapes. Nina Goodkin looks at Concrete Couch, writing about new ways to conceive of community. And finally, Clay Bessire writes of the ever-changing, capital-M Me.

From me in my ever-shifting threshold to you in yours, happy reading.

Anna and the Cipher staff