Description
Book SynopsisThe contributors to Conspiracy/Theory evaluate the relationship between critical theory and conspiracy theory as the basis for political thought, showing how people rely on conspiracy theory or critical theory to make sense of complex and confusing events and social crises.
Trade Review“In a time of increasing epistemic confusion, Joseph Masco and Lisa Wedeen brilliantly complicate the usual distinction between fact-based rationality and conspiracy theory by analyzing the infiltration of official disinformation into the public sphere and by exploring the blurred line between paranoid thinking and critical theory. Their book is an innovative and crucial contribution to the understanding of the politics of uncertainty and suspicion in contemporary societies.” -- Didier Fassin, Professor at the Collège de France and the Institute for Advanced Study
“This brilliant collection envisions conspiracy theories anew. It not only showcases distinct conspiracies across global sites and time periods, but also petitions readers to examine their own investments in conspiratorial thinking.
Conspiracy/Theory is a dazzling provocation and an important intervention.” -- Elisabeth R. Anker, author of * Ugly Freedoms *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Conspiracy/Theory / Joseph Masco and Lisa Weeden
Part I. Organizing Fictions
1. Impasse and Genre in American Politics and Literature / George Shulman 37
2. Where Did AIDS Come from? / Lochlann Jain 61
3. A False Flag / Joseph Masco 81
4. Conspiracy Attunement and Context: The Case of the President’s Body / Elizabeth Anne Davis 104
5. Conspiracy, Theory, and the “Post-Truth” Public Sphere / Timothy Melley 127
Part II. Atmospheres of Doubt
6. On Certainty and the Question of Judgment / Lisa Wedeen 149
7. Resonant Apophenia / Susan Lepselter 174
8. The Play of Conspiracy in Plato’s
Republic / Demetra Kasimis 190
9. An Economy of Suspicion: On the “Military-Civilian Divide” and the New American Militarism / Nadia Abu El-Haj 210
Part III. The Force of Capital
10. Conspiracies of Theory: Of Gold in the Shadow of Deindustrialization / Rosalind C. Morris 235
11. Adrian Piper and Alien Conspiracies of Bullying and Whistleblowing / Joseph Dumit 264
12. Humanitarian Profiteering in the Central African Republic as Conspiracy and Rumor / Louisa Lombard 291
13. Confessions of an Accused Conspiracy Theorist: The Financialization of Higher Education / Robert Meister 314
Part IV. The Politics of Enmity
14. Conspiracy and Its Curious Afterlives / Faith Hillis 341
15. Comedy of Terrors: National Security Fictions and the Origins of al-Qa‘ida / Darryl Li 362
16. After Muslims: Authority, Suspicion, and Secrecy in the Liberal Democratic State / Hussein Ali Agrama 386
17. Flame and Steel inside the Capitol / Kathleen Belew 409
Epilogue / Joseph Masco and Lisa Wedeen 425
Acknowledgments 435
References 437
Contributors 483
Index
