"That in-between place, between what you know and what you don't know, is an overlooked but crucial area in arts learning. It is sometimes called the liminal zone (Latin for 'threshold'). It can be the threshold of discovering, surprise, learning, and delight. Our creative selves come out to play in the liminal zone. Most people are a little wary of this zone, even anxious within it; humans naturally resist change and feel a little cautious of the new. It is a habit of mind to be able to adjust that tendency. We must be more skillful in slowing down passage through the liminal zone." --Eric Booth
"Institutional thinkers see themselves as debtors [who] have been freely given a world charged with meaning and calls to commitment. The institutionalist admires the excellences of what has been delivered to him. The contrast between thinking institutionally and current intellectual fashion is stark. The postmodern stance rejects inherited values as cultural oppressions. As a result, the anti-institutionalist has no capacity for genuine admiration. [An institutionalist] is moved by a central fact--that there is something estimable and decisive beyond me. What is it, larger than myself, into which I am drawn? To think institutionally is to be attentive to precedent. It is to see yourself as 'at once receiver and legacy' [in an] implicated life with others beyond the Self." --Hugh Heclo
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