Kitsune is the Historical Newsletter of Ronin Institute. It reaches over 300 subscribers. We welcome posts, articles  get in touch if you would like to contribute or guest edit an issue.

KITSUNE ARCHIVE *already posted

Kitsune, Issue 1   May 2026

Future Issues *planned

KITSUNE, Issue 2 -- Call for Submissions Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship

Read also:  Remembering Who You Are *Ronin Philosophy

Next Issue Theme: Academic Mobbing  - 2026

About this issue

Academic mobbing -- the coordinated, sustained targeting of an individual by colleagues, supervisors, or institutional actors -- remains one of the least examined yet most damaging phenomena in scholarly life. It operates through ostracism, reputational sabotage, procedural abuse, and the weaponisation of institutional authority. Its effects extend far beyond career disruption: mobbing inflicts measurable psychological and cognitive harm on those subjected to it, and its systemic tolerance degrades the quality of knowledge production itself.

This issue of Kitsune invites contributions that engage with academic mobbing from any disciplinary angle or mode of inquiry. We are particularly interested in work that addresses the following themes:

Psychological abuse and institutional power. How mobbing functions as a form of workplace psychological abuse, including its mechanisms (gaslighting, coordinated exclusion, administrative harassment), its structural enablers (hierarchical governance, precarious employment, closed peer review), and the institutional incentives that allow it to persist.

Mental health consequences. The documented and lived effects of mobbing on mental health -- anxiety, depression, PTSD, burnout, and complex trauma -- and the barriers that prevent targets from accessing support, including stigma, institutional capture of counselling services, and fear of retaliation.

Cognitive impairment and intellectual loss. The neurocognitive effects of sustained psychological stress on memory, executive function, attention, and creative reasoning. How chronic threat states degrade the very capacities that scholarship depends on, and what this means for the knowledge that never gets produced.

Intelligence, adaptation, and survival. Broader questions about how hostile environments shape cognitive development and intellectual trajectories. The relationship between psychological safety and the conditions under which original thinking becomes possible. What independent scholarship and non-institutional research structures offer as alternative ecologies for intellectual work.

Systemic and structural dimensions. Patterns in who gets mobbed -- along lines of gender, race, disability, neurodivergence, career stage, or heterodox thinking -- and what these patterns reveal about the values that academic institutions actually enforce, as distinct from those they profess.

Editorial Guidelines

Kitsune is not a peer-reviewed journal. Contributions are intended as informed, thoughtful writing for a broad scholarly audience -- not formal research articles. That said, we ask contributors to observe the following principles, which reflect the Ronin Institute's commitment to rigorous, responsible, and open scholarship.

Honesty and accuracy. Claims of fact should be supportable. Where you cite research findings, name the source. Where you draw on personal experience, say so plainly. Do not present speculation as established knowledge.

Transparency about evidence and its limits. Distinguish clearly between what the evidence shows, what it suggests, and what remains unknown. If your contribution rests on a single study, a small sample, or contested findings, acknowledge this.

Ethical treatment of subjects. Writing about mobbing inevitably involves real people and real harm. Do not name individuals as perpetrators without their knowledge and a clear public-interest justification. Where you describe personal experience, consider the privacy of others involved. The purpose is to illuminate patterns and structures, not to settle scores.

Intellectual honesty about framing. If you hold a strong position, own it as a position. Present counterarguments or alternative explanations where they exist. Advocacy is welcome; selective omission of inconvenient evidence is not.

Accessible language. Write for an educated general audience, not a narrow subspecialty. Minimise jargon. Define technical terms where they are necessary.

Attribution and licensing. Cite your sources. Contributions to Kitsune are published under CC BY-NC consistent with Ronin Institute policy, unless otherwise agreed. Authors retain copyright of their own work.

Formats welcome

Essays (1,500--4,000 words), shorter reflections or commentaries (500--1,500 words), structured literature reviews, case analyses, visual or diagrammatic contributions, and interviews. We are also open to non-traditional formats -- if you have something that does not fit a standard category, describe it briefly and we will discuss.

To submit or to join the curation team

Send an email with the following subject line:  KITSUNE 2026 

 to: admin@ronin-institute.org