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Tattoos have been detectable since early human history and in various cultures. They can be understood as a communication signal and indicate hidden and unconscious motive strands. They serve to cope with intense affects, impulses or stressful events. These are often either not sufficiently mentalised or first symbolised and then warded off by separating the body decoration and the underlying motifs and no longer involved in communication and reflection. While the tattoo can hardly be changed anymore, the attribution of meaning in the tattoo narratives can be modified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This preface to the special theme section “Historical narration in pre-modern Japan” addresses the terminological ambiguity of the expression “historical narrative” and its varying implications in the framework of literary studies. The individual papers approach the topic in a philological manner from different angles, i.e., from literary, historical, linguistic, and buddhological points of view. This preface introduces all the essays in this theme section and outlines their commonalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Instead of tracing intertextual references in Bernhard's œuvre, this essay reads his inventories as "corpora"—"ectopic" entities—that disrupt conventional systems of narration and orders of knowledge. Taking into account the persistent materiality of writing, the essay identifies the narrator of Amras as a "floating organ," a textual (out)growth that traces the corporeal topography of Bernhard's narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]