Everyone undergoes transformations: from childhood to adulthood, innocence to knowledge, the living to the dead. For centuries, communities have marked these thresholds with ritual: coming-of-age ordeals, vision quests, marriage ceremonies, funeral rites. Rites of passage share a common structure: separation, liminality, reincorporation. They acknowledge transformation as dangerous, necessary, and sacred. We'll study these passages as they appear in literature, memoir, myth, and film… from ancient initiation stories to contemporary accounts of adolescence, aging, grief, and rebirth. Epic poetry, novels, essays, short fiction. What happens in the space between who we were and who we're becoming? What do we gain, and what do we lose, in the crossing? We’ll also ask what happens when the rituals disappear. Modern Western culture has largely abandoned formal rites of passage; at what cost have we let these ancient practices lapse? Drawing on Homer, Achebe, Le Guin, Baldwin, Ocean Vuong, and more, we'll examine how narratives of initiation, maturation, and mortality serve as the crucible of selfhood. Assignments include persuasive essay, critical analysis, creative response, and introspective writing...all wrestling with life's most essential questions. Can a life without thresholds still find shape and meaning? What stories might help us recover what we've lost?