Part of the appeal of storytelling – be it literary, oral, or in any of the multiple forms in between – comes from its ability to take uncomfortable and complex social issues and render them more palatable to the reading public. Tales of the supernatural use otherworldly elements to confront social anxieties and explore possible futures, not only through content but also through compositional form. The articles in this issue focus on imaginative internal and transcendent horizons of fear, change, knowledge, and despair in modern Japanese literature: the spiritual, the spooky, and the spuriously scientific. These articles broadly address the ways in which spirits intersect with modern ideas that structure society. The central problem for the authors is how different notions of the supernatural or the spiritual are mobilized in modern Japanese literature to question assumptions about the nature of literature, gender, Japanese society, or modernity itself. Collectively, these articles address a number of Japanese authors, including giants of Japanese literature such as Kōda Rohan (Kōda Shigeyuki, 1867–1947), Mori Ōgai (Mori Rintarō, 1862–1922), and Kawabata Yasunari (1899–1972), but shine a new light on their work, demonstrating how they ventured into unempirical territory with experiments in ghost stories, religious poetry, and temporal lapses. These authors, as well as the lesser-known ones, overturn the perception of modern writers as either generally embracing formal and stylistic innovations or romanticizing an invented past. Further, they engaged with the political, technological, and artistic issues of their time, questioning received social and aesthetic values or certainties, exploring and learning to accept innovative uncertainties. Ghosts, spirits, and other metaphors for manifestations of the uncanny as they appear in ‘weird’ fiction have all enjoyed an evergreen status in both popular culture and ‘pure literature’ from early-modern to contemporary Japan. The Tokugawa period saw a boom in the popularity of spirits in various forms, such as ghost-storytelling parties (hyaku monogatari) and elaborately painted picture scrolls depicting parades of monsters (hyakki yagyō). During the rapid modernization and democratization of the Meiji and Taishō eras, writers like Izumi Kyōka (Izumi Kyōtarō, 1873–1939) and Uchida Hyakken (1889–1971), and later authors of popular detective fiction authors like Edogawa Ranpō (Hirai Tarō, 1894–1965), used uncanny stories to grapple with the

中文翻译：

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客座编辑介绍：精神与日本现代文学

讲故事的部分吸引力——无论是文学的、口头的，还是介于两者之间的任何多种形式——都来自于它能够处理令人不安和复杂的社会问题，并使它们更适合大众阅读。超自然故事使用超凡脱俗的元素来对抗社会焦虑并探索可能的未来，不仅通过内容，而且通过组合形式。本期文章重点关注现代日本文学中关于恐惧、变化、知识和绝望的富有想象力的内在和超然视野：精神的、怪异的和虚假的科学。这些文章广泛地讨论了精神与构成社会的现代思想相交的方式。作者的核心问题是如何在现代日本文学中调动不同的超自然或精神概念来质疑关于文学性质、性别、日本社会或现代性本身的假设。总的来说，这些文章针对许多日本作家，包括日本文学巨匠，如幸田洛汗 (Kōda Shigeyuki, 1867–1947)、森大外 (Mori Rintarō, 1862–1922) 和川端康成 (1899–1972)，但为他们的工作带来新的亮点，展示他们如何通过鬼故事、宗教诗歌和时间流逝的实验冒险进入非经验领域。这些作家以及鲜为人知的作家颠覆了现代作家的看法，认为他们要么普遍接受形式和文体创新，要么将虚构的过去浪漫化。更多，他们参与他们那个时代的政治、技术和艺术问题，质疑社会和审美价值或确定性，探索和学习接受创新的不确定性。出现在“怪诞”小说中的鬼魂、鬼魂和其他表现神秘事物的隐喻在流行文化和从近代到当代的日本的“纯文学”中都享有常青地位。德川时代，各种形式的鬼魂盛行，例如鬼故事会（hyaku monogatari）和描绘怪物游行的精美画卷（hyakki yagyō）。在明治和大正时代的快速现代化和民主化期间，像和泉京香（Izumi Kyōtarō，1873-1939）和内田百贤（1889-1971）这样的作家，