This is a very interesting and relevant essay!
About the uncanny, I can’t help but thinking that Freud’s interpretation, when applied to the collective, fits perfectly to the contemporary rise of fascism. It certainly feels unfamiliar to 21st century people, but isn’t it also a manifestation of something concealed and repressed? Behind the democratic surface and discourse, was there not always a fascistic, authoritarian and oppressive element at the core of liberal societies? And isn’t it also, at the same time, a repetition of an older collective experience?
On the same collective plane, it’s also worth noting the connection of the uncanny to Kristeva’s “abject” that is mentioned in the essay. In Kristeva’s theory the abject refers predominantly to the mother, the feminine, and the rise of the feminine is also a crucial (the most crucial, if you ask me) feature of the uncanniness of our current state. (Freud’s interpretation fits here too)
About the liminal, I think it is important that in the essay it is connected to rites of passage, it reminds me of an older idea of mine that our current era is a collective rite of passage out of History, and that also, in a fractalized manner, History as a whole is a collective rite of passage out of mere animality.
About the possible ways to deal with Backroom situations that are mentioned at the end, I think that the first two (“paralyzed by fear”, “paralyzed by nostalgia”) are closely connected, fear of the unknown leads naturally to nostalgia for the known, and we see that clearly in the present time.