ABSTRACT
Encounters with the ‘uncanny’ – or ‘supernatural’ as it is often labelled in Euro-American societies – are commonly conceived of as a ‘premodern’ mode of experience and characteristic of cultural ‘otherness’. However, social scientific research has shown that such experiences are also commonly reported in post-industrial, contemporary social settings. This chapter draws upon a letter archive of reported encounters with the uncanny. In the wake of scientific rationalism, uncanny experiences in the 20th century have been widely understood through psychiatric discourses labelling them as pathological. However, neuroscientific research has had a remarkable impact on cultural conceptions and representations of such experiences. Empirical investigation is based on an archive of over 200 unsolicited letters about people’s everyday uncanny experiences. They were sent to the research project Mind and the Other after the project gained public visibility in the Finnish media.
