Introduction

In this special issue, we are pleased to present articles that originated at the Imaginative Landscapes and Otherworlds (ILO) conference held online on June 22, 2022. The general conference theme developed originally from a desire to combine our broad research interests of historical landscapes/space (Norton) and historical conceptions of mythical beings/preternatural phenomena (Denson). As a medievalist and classicist, respectively, we further wanted to craft a conference that would broadly appeal across the humanities, incorporating a variety of periods and cultures and using diverse approaches. In addition to submissions from the ILO conference, this special issue includes two articles from the three-day conference, “Magic and the Sense of Place,” held in July 2022 at Oxford University and hosted by Diane Purkiss.