In today’s world, those who borrow on the insights and concepts of liminality and apply them to their own fields and disciplines have found whole new vistas opening. Applied Liminality is a sub-field of liminal studies in which the most practical of engagements are enriched and even changed as they discover a most relevant and helpful resource.

Education is one of those disciplines for which liminality has become exceptionally relevant. Learning and teaching rely on the crossing of thresholds from one state of awareness to another, passages of mind and heart. Liminal guides within intentional communities of transformation allow for growth, change and flourishing.

Drs Gabrielle Malfatti and Emily Crawford of the University of Missouri have made a marvelous leap into the solar system of liminality and education in their recent article “Higher Education and the Gift of the Liminal Moment” in the IdeasLab space of the UNESCO site (July 17, 2026). They observe just how precarious is our global situation and state of higher education, a liminal in-between that will require extraordinary liminal insight and leadership. Old structures and realities are dissolving, as they always do, and the new ones have not yet appeared or are emerging.

I commend their fine and thoughtful work to you, knowing that you, whatever your discipline, will find relevant ways to engage with Applied Liminality.

https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/higher-education-and-gift-liminal-moment