Wolfgang Müller-Funk - 'Borders - an Attempt on Humanity'

Borders have become a permanent topic in a globalized world: the overcoming of borders is both a promise and a source of panic, and the assumption that in a digitally driven world governed by abstract money, borders simply disappear is a misguided yet widespread notion. However, borders are much more than that; in the concept of liminality or borderliness, they prove to be an unavoidable phenomenon of individual and social self-formation. In fact, liminality is constitutive for the self-experience of our own physical boundaries, for the presence of death in life, and for our heterogeneous psychological state and identity. The function of borders as obstacles does not dissolve as a result, but it becomes apparent that liminality is constantly changing and taking on new forms.

Wolfgang Müller-Funk demonstrates that borders must be understood from a social psychological perspective and can only be made visible in certain societal constellations. His philosophical and literary quest leads into the world of myth, but also into the realm of intimate encounters and right into the everyday life of modern societies, which are on the verge of splitting over the question of borders.