(Senior) Editorial: Introuducing IJFS, a new journal.

Abstract

Any research on the term 'fear studies' in a university library will turn up a few uses of this term as mostly a loose aggregate term to identify more than one fear study (e.g., Mechias, Etkin & Kalisch, 2010). The studies listed by those using the term are all disciplinary, meaning, psychological- and/or biological-based with a strong emphasis on positivism and traditional views of empiricism (e.g., quantitative measurement as 'truth'). In this disciplinary regime, fear is treated (and imagined) as a feeling and/or emotion. Dictionaries and encyclopedias, as well as common everyday speech reinforces this meaning of (definition) of fear. At least, in the English version of translation of 'fear,' of which I can only claim to have access to understanding because of my own limited views as an English-speaker. IJFS is beginning with that linguistic (and cultural) limitation as well.