Yōkai is an elusive category in Japanese history, folklore, and popular culture. It consists of mysterious phenomena that can exercise extraordinary agency their interactions with humans. Attempting to grapple this amorphous category, folklore studies has defined yōkai as malevolent supernatural beings. However, a survey these reveals most instances do not fit definition. This article discusses...

We consider open dynamical systems, subject to external interventions by agents that are not completely described by the theory (classical or quantal). These interventions are localized in regions that are relatively spacelike. Under these circumstances, no relativistic transformation law exists that relates the descriptions of the physical system by observers in relative motion. Still, physica...

Margree, Victoria (2019): British Women’s Short Supernatural Fiction, 1860-1930. Our Own Ghostliness, Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-3-030-27141-1

The Zen koan is mysterious to many and its significance remains disputed by scholars. Is it a challenging therapeutic device, to be left behind like a raft after crossing the river, or a self-transparent statement of the liberated mind? Is it a logic-defying paradox or does it have its own performative rationality? Is it a spontaneous and often irreverent oral expression or a complex and staged...

Despite being prominently associated with its supernatural qualities, nature also features in fantasy fiction, an aspect of the genre that is often overlooked. Fantasy fiction developed as a dialectical opposition to Enlightenment and realist novel, based on binary oppositions reason/supernatural realism/supernatural. It possible add next same side these since reason/nature or culture/nature an...