Nature, Disaster, and Animism in Japan: Anima Philosophica

This open access book argues that existing scholarship on animism, with its focus on harmony, often overlooks a fundamental tension: that the same forces that sustain collective life also demand individual sacrifice. Rather than treating disasters as discrete events, the authors examine how vital forces flow between human communities and natural environments. They introduce the concept of anima, a force that is both generative and destructive, flowing from the wild into human communities.

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