From the Editor

As Preternature finishes its fourth year and enters its fifth, I would like introduce myself as the new editor, thank Founding Editor Kirsten Uszkalo for all of her wonderful work getting the journal up and running, and reflect on how far Preternature has come as well as on what directions it might take in the future.I initially became aware of Preternature during its first year of production. Kirsten Uszkalo had invited me to review a submission dealing with classical literature, and I was excited to hear that there was a new, interdisciplinary, scholarly journal for articles devoted to various aspects of the weird and uncanny. I myself had been interested in the preternatural and supernatural for many years, but was discouraged from trying to publish on such topics because they were not deemed “serious” scholarship by many in the academy. Thanks to a large number of knowledgeable and conscientious reviewers who have given very generously of their time, Preternature has published many excellent, scholarly articles that have gone a long way toward correcting that impression.Not long after serving as an ad hoc reviewer I was invited to join Preternature's Editorial Advisory Board as its resident classicist. I signed on as editor in spring of 2015 when Dr. Uszkalo stepped down for a well-earned break. Preternature owes its existence to her; she has built a remarkable journal—highly interdisciplinary, international, and inclusive. Articles are regularly submitted from all over the globe and from a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, art history, classics, medieval studies, English, history, and philosophy. A number of articles, including one in the current issue, have incorporated work from the biological sciences. Preternature has, in short, developed a distinct space for interdisciplinary work on the eerie, the odd, and the esoteric.As the journal's new editor, I remain committed to Dr. Uszkalo's vision of providing a forum for critically exploring topics that stand in the liminal space between the known world and the inexplicable—between the natural and supernatural. Preternature will continue to encourage scholarship about witchcraft, demonology, the monstrous, and more, recognizing that the areas of magic, religion, and science are fluid and that their intersections should continue to be explored, contextualized, and challenged. The journal will also continue to engage scholars from around the world, both as authors and reviewers; in fact, I am pleased to report that for nearly all submissions we have regularly been able to recruit one reviewer from North America and one from abroad, a practice that greatly aids in framing Preternature's articles for a wide audience.My editorship depends on successful collaborative relationships with many people, and I would like to introduce several of them here. First, Preternature has recently been able to add an associate editor, Thea Tomaini, Associate Professor (Teaching) of English at the University of Southern California. Her research interests focus on early modern England, particularly the Reformation. One of her specialties is oath swearing, as evidenced by her 2011 book, Sworn Bond in Tudor England: Oaths, Vows, and Covenants in Civil Life and Literature (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland); her other main interest is the cultural fascination with death in England. Second, I owe a huge debt to Preternature's book reviews editor, Richard Raiswell, who has been with the journal since its inception and whose guidance has proven instrumental during my transition to the editor's position. Richard is Associate Professor of History at the University of Prince Edward Island. His many areas of specialization include the occult in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as well as the problem of deceit in premodern Europe. His publications include the coedited collection The Devil in Society in Premodern Europe (Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2012) and a number of articles on preternatural topics, including demonology. I would also like to express my appreciation to the members of Preternature's Editorial Advisory Board for their encouragement and feedback—Guido Dall'Olio, Owen Davies, Sarah Ferber, David Frankfurter, David Gange, Jeffrey Kripal, Asa Mittman, Éva Pócs, and Diane Purkiss. I am particularly grateful to several wonderful (and very patient) people at Penn State University Press, including Journals Manager Diana Pesek, Production Coordinator Julie Lambert, Marketing Manager Heather Smith, and Journals Managing Editor Astrid Meyer.For my own specific goals, I hope to further engage both classicists and scholars of nineteenth- and twentieth-century preternaturalism in order to extend the time periods usually covered in Preternature, and to encourage more submissions from anthropologists, biologists, and other scientists in order to continue expanding the journal's interdisciplinary appeal. I would therefore like to re-extend this journal's long-standing welcome to all who work to broaden and deepen our understanding of the role that the preternatural has had in history, literature, and science in cultures around the world.I believe this current issue shows Preternature's commitment to maintaining and expanding the vision of Founding Editor Kirsten Uszkalo. In the first article, Kenneth F. Kitchell Jr. uses a zoological approach to analyze Greek, Roman, and medieval perceptions of “monstrous” animals, showing that what appeared to the ancients to be preternatural creatures were most likely real animals so extraordinary that they defied belief. In the second article, Harman Bhogal takes us to early modern England to explore the historical context of the controversy surrounding exorcist John Darrell, who in 1597 was accused of fraud. Bhogal's essay demonstrates how the debates between Darrell and his detractors exposed the conceptual problems with the category of “preternatural” in early modern demonology. Lastly, Kathryn Morris's article examines attitudes toward vampire lore in eighteenth-century Europe, focusing on the tension between superstition and the emerging, rationalistic scientific method.Finally, I would like to encourage you, the reader, to spread the word about Preternature, and to let us know what topics you might like to see covered in the future. For book reviews, please contact Richard Raiswell at rraiswell@upei.ca; for information about articles, please direct correspondence to me, Debbie Felton, at felton@classics.umass.edu. To access our new online submission system, please visit http://www.psupress.org/journals/jnls_submis_Preternature.html.

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