Microsoft Word - Sameshima Irwin formatted WITH EDITS .doc TO CITE THIS ARTICLE PLEASE INCLUDE ALL OF THE FOLLOWING DETAILS: Sameshima, Pauline and Irwin, Rita L. (2008). Rendering dimensions of liminal currere. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 5 (2) http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci RENDERING DIMENSIONS OF A LIMINAL CURRERE Pauline Sameshima Washington State University, USA Rita L. Irwin University of British Columbia, Canada Attempts to explore and articulate the role(s) of the arts in qualitative social science research, in particular, understanding the relationship between processes of the arts and the processes of research, present challenges because for an a/r/tographer, the relationship between the creation of artful representational forms and the crafting of artful scholarly research are not dualist, nor dichotomous, but rather non-linear, rhizomatic, and dynamically interwoven. This paper offers a description of our individual art-making processes as living inquiries of spiritual pedagogical practice grounded in the work of curriculum theorist, Jacques Daignault. To assist understanding while visually conceptualizing the cycling hermeneutic a/r/tographic (Irwin 2004) description of our own processes within creative scholarship, we use Rita's "Ampersand" Photo Series and Pauline's "Edges" Photo Series to figuratively convey our understandings of the dimensions of currere. The paper is framed with the following five subsections: Curriculum as Multi-dimensional, Curriculum as Spiritual, Curriculum as Textual Literacies, Curriculum as Liminal Currere, and finally, Curriculum as Renderings of Liminality. Curriculum as Multi-dimensional To metaphorically situate artful research and create possibilities for understanding processes of the arts in research, we turn to the work of Jacques Daignault to inform our thinking about artful inquiry as a description of curriculum and of pedagogy. Daignault is a major North America curriculum theorist with a focus on Contemporary French Literature and Philosophy in relation to education. Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery, and Taubman (1995, p. 480) enthusiastically advocate that Daignault "brilliantly explores the space, the gaps, the 'in-betweens' and the differences within language, thought, the subject, and our ways and modes of conceiving ourselves and curriculum." Daignault attempts to "articulate the very movement of thought itself as it thinks itself in the relationships of teaching and learning" (p. 481). We pause now to provide a very brief frame for Daignault's view of curriculum. Daignault argues that "to know is to kill" (1992a, p. 199). Violence stems from privileging power between ideologies and doctrines, thus to know is to murder, to terrorize. For Daignault, the opposite of terrorism is nihilism, which is the abandonment of any attempt to know. Nihilism is the hopelessness of surrendering ideals to empty fictions and memories. Daignault (1983) urges a residing in the in-between, where the power of terrorism is not sought nor is education viewed as a place of efficiency and manipulation. Thinking, he believes "happens only in between suicide and murder . . . between nihilism and terrorism" (1992a, p. 19). Daignault believes thinking is itself the passage between. It is in the process of thinking that a forward movement is created. Daignault writes, "I have tried to find passages between the variable and the invariable, between both: not from one to the other, but passages at their absolute difference, the differénce [Derrida's term] between death, twice evaded" (p. 201). Many researchers seek to bridge the http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci Sameshima and Irwin (2008) Rendering dimensions of liminal currere Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 5 (2) 2008 http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci 2 disparate, trying to link the science and the arts, or theory and practice whereas Daignault suggests that we walk between, not across. We follow the paths of the liminal edge not seeking the nostalgic desire to leave where we are and travel across to the other place, but to travel between and along the edges of here and there in the unsettled liminal space. Daignault's work is very much about articulating the passages between. He resists representing a totalized knowledge but rather stages or performs "knowledge through a passageway" by thinking aloud (1983, pp. 7-13). Daignault says the "gap" is the curriculum and that "thinking is the incarnation of curriculum as composition" (quoted in Hwu, 1993, p. 172). Curriculum understood as composition allows "a participation" in "continuing creation" (quoted in Hwu, 1993, p. 171). Daignault's views on knowledge creation are not about pinning down or defining reification, but are rather a translation of a joyful wisdom, "thinking maybe" (1992a, p. 202) and being sincere as he says, "Do not expect me to know what I am talking about here; I am trying to think. That is my best contribution to the composer's creativity" (1992a, p. 4). To expand Daignault's view, we see the space between or the passageway as not a two- dimensional preformed pathway, but a multi-layered complex interplay of dimensions which span breadth, depth, height, and time. A simple metaphoric image to describe liminal dimensionality is to imagine a tree's both grown and not yet grown branches as passages of rhizomatic travel. In the liminal learning space, one can move between, in, on, and through the branches of the tree itself, on and through its changing shadows on the context of land, as well as under the earth on and through the roots of the tree. Figure 1. "Rhizomatic Roots." P. Sameshima, 2005, New Orleans. This metaphor is also useful for noting that as one forges through open spaces growing branches and roots where none were before, the liminal itself is eliminated in the process of growth and becomes the evidenced curriculum. Hence, the liminal, once encountered, is curriculum. http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci Sameshima and Irwin (2008) Rendering dimensions of liminal currere Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 5 (2) 2008 http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci 3 A second image useful for conceptualizing multi-dimensional liminal curriculum comes from the postmodern work of William Doll (1993) and the work on complexity theory in relation to education by Brent Davis and Dennis Sumara (2005). Davis and Sumara encourage poststructuralist methods of conceptualizing educational research which abandon characterizations of and distinctions among qualitative research methodologies which have tended to be defined in terms and principles developed against a background of scientific research. On the cover of Doll's (1993) book, A Post-Modern Perspective on Curriculum, is the figure of a "phase space" diagram named "chaos." "Chaos" alternately called the "Lorenz attractor" was introduced by meteorologist Edward Lorenz (1963) and is a graphical representation of a nonlinear, three-dimensional system over time. Figure 2. A Lorenz Phase Shape Sample. Retrieved from: http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~pbourke/fractals/lorenz/ Patterns are random but not created with wild, haphazard abandon. Patterns are complexly ordered and trajectories of patterns have "bounds" and a center "attractor" area. There is a dynamic tension between moving out and back and an overall coherence (See the unpaginated opening in Doll, 1993). A phase space graph or diagram provides a heuristic to imagine and represent possible states of a system. One possible state would thus be one unique point in the whole diagram. In mechanical systems, the phase space graph usually consists of all possible values of position and momentum variables. The diagram represents plots of position and momentum variables as a function of time (see Wikipedia, 2006, ¶ 1). Although phase shapes in mathematic models are deterministic systems with set possible positions, traversing liminal spaces that cross borders between time and space are "grown" and self-created through the movement of currere. The act of articulation, performance, or even a simple acknowledged or witnessed encountering of these liminal intersections which correspond with coordinates on the phase shape graph, provide contextual situators which designate points of learning. In The Language of Research and the Language of Practice: Neither One Nor the Other: Pedagogy (1988), Daignault suggests that we not try to find a language which is common to both groups or an average between or a form of moderation, but rather, speak a language that subverts the dualism itself and yet honours difference. He says, "Difference between the language of practice and the language of research are not reducible at the surface level. . . . Nevertheless, language is language. At some level, there are no differences between languages" (quoted in Hwu, 1993, p. 166). So it is with art. The text of artful representation is still a text seeking response. Daignault proposes http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~pbourke/fractals/lorenz Sameshima and Irwin (2008) Rendering dimensions of liminal currere Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 5 (2) 2008 http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci 4 that curriculum and pedagogy operate in the space between practice and theory, between what is and what ought to be, and which is the "excluded third" (Pinar et al., 1995, p. 483). Thus Daignault grounds our artful ways of researching as thinking about curriculum as the gap which we travel along as artists, imagining a pedagogy of spirituality that informs and reforms our thinking. Curriculum as Spiritual The development of curriculum is spiritual in that artful practice, creativity, and creative acts are spiritual (Hall, 2000) and the heart of the research is not only mirrored, but actually constructed in its own creation and development. Artful research is spiritual because it evidences care and compassion, joy, responsive mindfulness, and an embodied esthetic awareness. A spiritual curriculum moves beyond the rational and analytic ways of understanding the world and favors intuitive and emotional ways of knowing as we focus our perceptions on building connections, seeking unity and feeling centered: in other words, being mindful. (Irwin, 2007, p. 1401) Iannone (1999) explains: "Mindfulness for curriculum means learning how to focus and grasping meanings that are important for the individual" (Also see Tuoti, 1997; Langer, 1997). To live inquiry in the liminal space is to be present in a heightened state of being, as if immersed in luminiferous ether (Sameshima, 2007). Ether was historically the fifth element along with air, earth, fire, and water and was once believed to be a medium that filled all space to support the propagation of electromagnetic waves (thehyperdictionary, 2007). Living in the ether is thus living in a mode of inquiry that is sensually and sensitively charged. Merleau-Ponty (1968) describes living this aesthetic openness of being as "chiasm" which is experiencing the world as "flesh"—a meshing of subject and object, self and body, and body and world. Merleau-Ponty explains: The flesh is not matter, is not mind, is not substance. To designate it, we should need the old term "element," in the sense it was used to speak of water, air, earth, and fire, that is, in the sense of a general thing, midway between the spatio-temporal individual and the idea, a sort of incarnate principle that brings a style of being wherever there is a fragment of being. The flesh is in this sense an "element" of Being. (p. 139) Parker Palmer says: "as I teach, I project the condition of my soul onto my students, my subject, and our way of being together" (1998, p.1). Thus, our presence and our encounters with others and our selves become a curriculum (Irwin, 2007). Daignault (1992b) too, sees the spirituality in curriculum. He talks about writing and encouraging others to write as a form of care for the other, reiterating again his views of active participatory curriculum construction. He believes that through language, serenity can be achieved. Serenity is defined as inner peace, not happiness but a "comeback to happiness" in spite of suffering (p. 2). He believes serenity dispels suffering by attaching meaning to moments of active and passive violence. Curriculum as Textual Literacies As a/r/tographers (see Irwin, 2004), we continue to attempt to articulate the art processes in terms of research processes through language, which itself "occupies the space of separation" (Pinar et al., 1995, p. 447). Merleau-Ponty asserts that "the primary meaning of discourse is to be found in that text of experience which it is trying to communicate" (1962, p. 388). Thinking about research through artful processes of inquiry allows for possibilities for making fresh connections. One method of developing emergent connective relational intersections can be made by using the four identified types of literary tropes. A trope is simply language used in a figurative or nonliteral http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci Sameshima and Irwin (2008) Rendering dimensions of liminal currere Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 5 (2) 2008 http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci 5 sense. When looking at or developing artful research, one can attempt to make connections through: 1) Metaphor as similarity, comparison and literary zeugmas; 2) Metonymy as association, contiguity, connectedness, and essence; 3) Synecdoche as the interchanging of more and less inclusive terms or the distribution of the whole into the part; and, 4) Irony as contraries or a wide-awakeful awareness of the incongruity between what is expected and what occurs. These tropes form various layers in and around artful inquiry as a methodology. The arts are a moving center and the theoretical constructs are multiple planes of voices radiating in, under and over layers around the arts. We adopt Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery, and Taubman's (1995, pp. 448-449) metaphor of curriculum as a Jackson Pollock painting in our own work: Understanding curriculum as deconstructed text acknowledges knowledge as preeminently historical. Here, however, history is not understood as only ideologically constructed, rather as a series of narratives superimposed upon each other, interlaced among each other, layers of story merged and separated like colors in a Jackson Pollock painting. The stories we tell in schools, formalized as disciplines, are always others' stories, always conveying motives and countermotives, dreams, and nightmares. To understand curriculum as deconstructed (and deconstructing) text is to tell stories that never end, stories in which the listener, the "narratee," may become a character or indeed the narrator, in which all structure is provisional, momentary, a collection of twinkling stars in a firmament of flux. Curriculum is a complicated conversation (Pinar, 2004) in whatever textual form "encounters" are articulated. Encounters are iterations of moments of understanding, renderings through the arts or verbal acknowledgements of knowledge. Roger Ames (1996) describes the articulation of order in the Chinese world with the example of the formation of the Han Dynasty wherein simply, there were five zones or concentric, hierarchical layers. The central zone received the greatest degree of tribute. Each circle is essentially a focus field. Using this nesting model, we compare the centrality of focus in artful research not in defined zones but as the source of dynamic ripples that move in and out of one another, rippling from and through the various layerings of tropes. Ames further explains the Han Dynasty: It is a centripetal order articulated outward from a central axis through patterns of deference and importance. . . . Whatever constitutes the authority at the center—in this political example, the ruler—derives its authority from . . . within. . . the order of its field of influence. The ruler does not stand above or outside the empire; he is the empire. . . . This determinate, detailed, "center-seeking" focus fades into an increasingly indeterminate and untextured field. The magnetic attraction of the center is such that, with varying degrees of intensity and success, it draws into its field, suspends, and harmonizes the disparate, diverse, and often mutually inconsistent centers that constitute its world." (p. 222) As a/r/tographers, we imagine tropes as forming various layers of vibrant interpretation. We welcome multiplicity as we create art; pool, but not diminish diversity; and in the process of creation, we contribute to the construction of curriculum and pedagogy in the passageway of thinking. Metaphors, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony seen as prepositional to artful research enables a rich collective understanding of the research representation that encourages openness and variety. Rudolf Arnheim emphasizes that: Overcoming the egocentric view amounts to realizing that a center is not always in the middle. . . . More often, the environment is dominated by other centers, http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci Sameshima and Irwin (2008) Rendering dimensions of liminal currere Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 5 (2) 2008 http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci 6 which force the self into a subordinate position. . . . Speaking generally, one can assert that every visual field comprises a number of centers, each of which attempts to draw the other into subservience. The self as viewer is just one of these centers. . . . The overall balance of all these competing aspirations determines the structure of the whole, and that total structure is organized around what I will call the balancing center. (1982, vii) The balancing center is hence the artful research, research representations, and all its tropes seeking simultaneous subordination and focus in an agitation and inability to "settle into a clear, linear course, neither willing to stop moving, restless, transient and transitive. . . drawing one charged moment into another, constituting knowledge in an ongoing process of transmission and transferal" (Pollock, 1998, pp. 90-91). Roger Ames (1996, p. 223) further suggests that Rudolf Arnheim's (1982) notion of composition can easily be used to describe "the construction of the Confucian self and the various foci that define its world." This Chinese sense of order in the focal area values the richness of diversity and difference by absorbing into itself all that is around, merging and changing the focus. Instead of defining the center as already whole and closed, the "movement from disunity to unity is better expressed in the language of incorporation and accommodation than in terms of suppression and exclusion" (Ames, 1996, p. 223). It is important to note here that incorporation does not mean assimilation. Difference continues to be acknowledged as the researcher seeks to walk between disparity. Although Ames' work centers on self-perception and he describes a "focus-field" as conception of self, we substitute conception as rendered which is the dialogic creation between scholarly research and artful research which is shaped continuously and dynamically in its context. Most importantly, "the field of the focal is not circumscribed or holistic, but is open: an unbounded and inexhaustible reservoir of particular detail which, in a graduated degree, has relevance for the focal" (1996, p. 221). James Corner explains layering as a thickening process where layers are independent, not "mappings of an existing site or context, but of the complexity of the intended programme for the site" (1999, p. 235). Thus, for us, several transparent maps can be overlaid and the possible variations are complex. This is to say that the construct of mapping curriculum or liminal currere is not a two-dimensional cartographic representation of something like landscape or geography but rather a construct of "vacant layers" or a living grid of layered planes made up of "contextual points" which one can ricochet up, down, across and between so that liminality becomes multi- dimensional across space and time. In this sense, the verb, mapping constructs points on the phase space diagram unfolding a pattern with a dynamic focal area. The Prepositions of Liminality The spaces of liminality speak to a place of agitation. The in-between is unsettled. To describe liminality we use prepositional words such as from, at, or, with, by, and others. Metaphors use "as" or the notion of "as" as a key word. Prepositions purpose for being is to be in the in-between and move the words and ideas beside them to new spaces. Conceptualizing prepositions as liminal words inherently points to relationality, of becoming and transforming from what is to something anew. For example: "Education through art" as compared to "education in art" are completely different ideas and transform "education" and "art" by the sheer act of being in-between the two words. Carl Leggo (1998, p. 178) writes: The word preposition is derived from prae (before) and ponere (to place). A preposition is a word of relation/relating. A preposition connects elements of a sentence. A preposition makes a proposition possible. A preposition is a marker of place. A preposition does not stand alone; it is always a part of the sentence. . . . Prepositions keep things in motion, unstable, mobile. Prepositions signify act/ing, http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci Sameshima and Irwin (2008) Rendering dimensions of liminal currere Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 5 (2) 2008 http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci 7 relating, connecting. . . . The pose or position or place of a preposition is not stable. It is always a fecund place. Another way to look at the word preposition is to think of the meaning as pre-position or to place or position something in advance. If one can imagine mapping as traveling rhizomatically through multidimensional spaces of knowing, seeking pre-positional points of intersection on the transparent layers of metaphoric planes of time and space, then one can further see how prepositions themselves can be viewed not only as nouns but also as verbs of transformative action. Curriculum as Liminal Currere Much of educational rhetoric today seeks to make learning experiences common amongst all learners, which in turn leads to a reduction of personal identity in favor of collective sameness within focus fields. The uniformity of the collective naturally creates a literal stagnation and an acceptance of a status quo which can be likened to the word curriculum as meaning a prescribed list of outcomes, objectives and content. Interestingly enough, the word curriculum is derived from the Latin word, currere, which means to run. Curriculum is static, while currere is dynamic. In order to support an energetic curriculum of currere, working in the liminal space where art and its tropes continue to resist distinction and containment in focus fields or layers will hearten a generative place of creative knowledge construction. Ted Aoki (1999, p. 181) reminds us to: recall the textured form of plannable/unplannable or predictable/unpredictable. These are [M]etonymies. . . . Contexturing this way brings forth the space between, here grappled with a slash: "/". It looks like a simple oppositional binary space, but it is not. It is a space of doubling, where we slip into the language of "both this and that, but neither this nor that." The liminal space is the studio of the a/r/tographer. A/r/tographers live and work in the spaces of dynamic currere. They are situated in liminal spaces between the identities of being an artist, researcher, and teacher/educator. The forward slashes in the word a/r/tographer emphasize the liminal in-betweens. A/r/tographers are not straddling between two or three roles, but are constructing the liminal space by articulating and traveling the borderlands in James Corner's (1999) three contemporary thematic mapping practices which he names: drift, layering and rhizome. Liminality is derived from the Latin word for threshold and is perceived to represent borders or the borderlands. These in-between spaces are always attached to other areas yet they are neither inside nor outside. Liminal spaces are dynamic spaces of possibility where individuals and cultures come in contact with one another creating interstitial conditions for new communities of learning (see Conroy, 2004). The arts offer practices that are inherently liminal because they highlight taken-for-granted experiences or conversely, make strange experiences seem familiar. They open up possibilities for different insights and thus expand notions of scholarly inquiry. (See Irwin, 2006). Curriculum as Renderings of Liminality Rita's Photographic "Ampersand" Series People are longing for more meaning in their lives (see Huebner, 1999) – or perhaps I am longing for more meaning in my life. When we are consumed with the things that seem to fill our lives, we often forget to listen to our souls. In listening to my soul, I feel compelled to experience joy, compassion, and a sense of awe for the mystery that abounds as I search for mindfulness – that meaning making that is significant to my sense of self. To nurture this, I find I need to open up spaces for play, contemplation, and intuition in an overly rational world. http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci Sameshima and Irwin (2008) Rendering dimensions of liminal currere Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 5 (2) 2008 http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci 8 Figure 3. "& 1." R. Irwin, 2005, Vancouver. Robert Starratt (2000, p. 3) talks about spirituality as a: way of being present to the most profound realities of one's world. A way of being present implies a certain discipline, a certain pattern of paying attention, a process of focusing or centering on the basic reality that gives meaning and sustenance to everything. It is this sense of presence that I aspire to in my pedagogy, my leadership and in my artistic practices. Carolyn Shields, a colleague and friend, talks of this presence as "giving the gift of self to another" (2004, p. 5) or to oneself. It is, after all, through an encounter that we come to know ourselves, and others. Artists act as liminal beings working in liminal spaces. I see my presence as an artist as one in which I dwell in a threshold of understanding, a threshold of dynamic possibilities creating interstitial conditions for learning (see Conroy, 2004). The arts are liminal as they offer spaces to quest for meaning making (e.g. Irwin, 2006). In other words, they offer ways for individuals to understand their own liminal spaces of experience. By acknowledging subtle forms of engagement I seek to nurture a quest for wisdom (see Abbs, 2003). "A quest for wisdom is a search for deeper insights, transcendence, transformation, and a restoration of humanity that is bound together through spiritual and aesthetic engagement" (Irwin, 2007, p. 1403). My photographs are at once an exploration of my body in movement and an imaginative turn within the process of photography itself. My photographs are in and of the liminal spaces of forest walks near my home. In these photographs, I use my camera as if it were a paintbrush as I quicken to understand my surroundings through motion – a motion that metaphorically evokes deep breathing. Ironically, this quickening slows me down by offering me a time and place to linger in the moment of creation, to pay attention to my breathing, to allow my breath to move the image itself. http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci Sameshima and Irwin (2008) Rendering dimensions of liminal currere Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 5 (2) 2008 http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci 9 Figure 4. "& 2." R. Irwin, 2005, Vancouver Figure 5. "& 3." R. Irwin, 2005, Vancouver. The original meaning of the word spirit in many ancient traditions is that of the breath of life (see Capra, 2002, p. 67). All human beings need to breathe deeply to feel intensely alive. Figure 4. "& 4." R. Irwin. 2005, Vancouver http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci Sameshima and Irwin (2008) Rendering dimensions of liminal currere Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 5 (2) 2008 http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci 10 Through these photographs I explore the breath of the image, the breath of my body creating the image, and the breath of the concept of liminality within/between/through/of the image and myself. Through my forest walks and the photographs that accompany them, I engage in acts of spiritual and aesthetic liminality that offer me an opportunity to experience the depths of being fully alive. Pauline's Photographic "Edges: Naturally Made" Series I have been intrigued with perceived visible edges – the imagined liminal space where Gadamer (1989) believes transformation takes place. Initially, I imagined this liminal space as a narrow band of limbo with Daignault walking gingerly along, but by taking photographs of visible "edges," I realized that the defined edge between two "things" is only articulated when rendered (in this case as a photograph). For example, from this photographic collection, I have come to better understand the convergences of my pedagogy and my life perspectives. Figure 5. "Edges 1." P. Sameshima, 2005, New Orleans. If I think metaphorically of myself as man-made construction and curriculum as natural environment, the space to "think through" as Daignault would suggest, I find myself controlled and curriculum loose—always disparate dichotomies. Yet, when rendered photographically and thinking about the metaphor of self as building and curriculum as sky, building and sky clearly touch at the edges. In reality, the two do not "meet" as sky has no concrete edge—only in the photograph does the building and sky have an edge. This is to say that through representation, the articulation of the liminal space is spoken or created into existence. And when the liminal "borders" are "seen" then navigation through, in, or on the running passageway of constructed currere is possible, always honouring difference. Perspective, angle, and personal location also change the edges that visually touch. http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci Sameshima and Irwin (2008) Rendering dimensions of liminal currere Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 5 (2) 2008 http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci 11 Figure 8. "Edges 2." P. Sameshima, 2005, Las Vegas. Figure 9. "Edges 3." P. Sameshima, 2005, Las Vegas. Each person's liminal space alters in every moment of changing light, stance and context. I know at once that the imaginary edges are side by side and yet there is actually infinite depth between myself as a researcher teacher and the possible passages of pedagogy. The task for all is to develop spaces for professional dialogue in order to find, articulate, and render congruencies – the edges where we touch (See Sameshima, 2007). In finding these points of contact, we welcome and embrace interdisciplinary and intradisciplinary learning in the multifarious rhizomatic pathways of pedagogic experience. Figure 10. "Edges 4." P. Sameshima, 2005, Las Vegas. A fully rendered image of curriculum can also be imagined as a Mandelbrot Set – the closer you look at the design, the greater the complexity that continues infinitely to fractal in detail. (See the work on fractals by Benoit Mandelbrot; and in relation to educational research, Davis & Sumara, 2005). http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci Sameshima and Irwin (2008) Rendering dimensions of liminal currere Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 5 (2) 2008 http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci 12 Figures 11, 12 & 13. Examples of Mandelbrot Sets. Retrieved from: http://images.google.ca/images?q=mandelbrot&hl=en&lr=&sa=N&tab=ii&oi=imagest The touching edges in my photographs are the liminal spaces – the places where new synergetic collaborative understanding evolves, the space where an anisogamic union can produce something completely new. In challenging ourselves to think artfully, heartful imaginative and new creative ways of articulating our being and our spiritual connections become constructed. Hermes, the Greek trickster and messenger teaches us that learning is playful and "understanding is an adventure and, like any other adventure, it is dangerous" (Gadamer 1983, pp. 109-110). Hermes is also identified with borders, with boundaries and with keeping open the gates between one realm and another, "to hear the messages in whatever is said. This is the hermeneutic ear that listens-through, a consciousness of the borders, as Hermes was worshiped at borders. We are reminded that every wall and every weave presents its opening. Everything is porous." (Hillman 1987, p. 156, quoted in Jardine, 1998, p. 51) Figure 14. "Edges 5." P. Sameshima, 2005, New Orleans. Rendering a Drawing Together In this paper, we have attempted to render a number of dimensions in the liminal currere of our artful inquiry. We draw our rendering together now with words from Anne Carson (1998, p. 4) for prepositions are not the only words which lie in-between and provoke transformation: What is an adjective? Nouns name the world. Verbs activate the names. Adjectives come from somewhere else. The word adjective (epitheton in Greek) is http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci http://images.google.ca/images?q=mandelbrot&hl=en&lr=&sa=N&tab=ii&oi=imagest Sameshima and Irwin (2008) Rendering dimensions of liminal currere Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 5 (2) 2008 http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci 13 itself an adjective meaning "place on top," "added," "appended," "imported," "foreign." Adjectives seem fairly innocent additions but look again. These small imported mechanisms are in charge of attaching everything in the world to its place in particularity. They are the latches of being. The adjectives of research are artful research inquiries. Artful inquiry enables research to latch onto the heart and to transpire transformation. Prepositions paint the scene, opening spaces of imagination and possibilities while adjectives bring the scene alive by filling the multidimensional space between metaphoric text and image, and viewer. Adjectives can be further likened to a soundtrack accompanying a movie scene – different soundtracks will evoke dissimilar responses even when the scene remains the same. In using metaphors to articulate our notions of working in liminal spaces, we describe relational inquiries between artful research processes and artful scholarly research representations and offer expanded notions of the role of poststructual conceptions, spirituality, textual literacies, and the arts in the practice of scholarly curriculum inquiry. References Abbs, Peter. (2003). Against the flow: Education, the arts and postmodern culture. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Ames, Roger. (1996). The classical Chinese self of hypocrisy. 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Letters to a new teacher: A curriculum of embodied aesthetic awareness. Teacher Education Quarterly. Sameshima, Pauline (2007). Seeing Red—A pedagogy of parallax: An epistolary bildungsroman on artful scholarly inquiry. Youngstown, NY: Cambria Press. Shields, Carolyn. (2004). Taking account of spirituality: Should educational leaders care? In C. Shields, M. Edwards & A. Sayani (Eds.), Inspiring practice: Spirituality and educational leadership (pp. 3-16). Lancaster, PN: Proactive. Starratt, Robert. J. (2000, April). Historical frameworks for understanding spirituality: Implications for Catholic education. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the National Catholic Education Association, Baltimore, MD. Tuoti, Frank X. (1997). The Dawn of the mystical age. New York: Crossroad. Wikipedia. (2006). See www.wikipedia.com http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci http://www.hyperdictionary.com http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3673 http://www.wikipedia.com Sameshima and Irwin (2008) Rendering dimensions of liminal currere Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 5 (2) 2008 http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci 15 Authors Pauline Sameshima is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Teacher and Learning at Washington State University. Email: psameshima@wsu.edu Rita Irwin is Professor and Associate Dean of Teacher Education and Professor of Art Education and Curriculum Studies in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia. Email: rita.irwin@ubc.ca http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci mailto:psameshima@wsu.edu mailto:irwin@ubc.ca