Conspiracy Theory In Latin Literature

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Conspiracy Theory in Latin Literature

Author : Victoria Emma Pagán
Publisher : University of Texas Press
ISBN 13 : 0292749791
Total Pages : 199 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (927 download)

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Book Synopsis Conspiracy Theory in Latin Literature by : Victoria Emma Pagán

Download or read book Conspiracy Theory in Latin Literature written by Victoria Emma Pagán and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2012-12-15 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conspiracy theory as a theoretical framework has emerged only in the last twenty years; commentators are finding it a productive way to explain the actions and thoughts of individuals and societies. In this compelling exploration of Latin literature, Pagán uses conspiracy theory to illuminate the ways that elite Romans invoked conspiracy as they navigated the hierarchies, divisions, and inequalities in their society. By seeming to uncover conspiracy everywhere, Romans could find the need to crush slave revolts, punish rivals with death or exile, dismiss women, denigrate foreigners, or view their emperors with deep suspicion. Expanding on her earlier Conspiracy Narratives in Roman History, Pagán here interprets the works of poets, satirists, historians, and orators—Juvenal, Tacitus, Suetonius, Terence, and Cicero, among others—to reveal how each writer gave voice to fictional or real actors who were engaged in intrigue and motivated by a calculating worldview. Delving into multiple genres, Pagán offers a powerful critique of how conspiracy and conspiracy theory can take hold and thrive when rumor, fear, and secrecy become routine methods of interpreting (and often distorting) past and current events. In Roman society, where knowledge about others was often lacking and stereotypes dominated, conspiracy theory explained how the world worked. The persistence of conspiracy theory, from antiquity to the present day, attests to its potency as a mechanism for confronting the frailties of the human condition.

Conspiracy Theories and Latin American History

Author : Luis Roniger
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000438724
Total Pages : 279 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (4 download)

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Book Synopsis Conspiracy Theories and Latin American History by : Luis Roniger

Download or read book Conspiracy Theories and Latin American History written by Luis Roniger and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-09-09 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a systematic inquiry of conspiracy theories across Latin America. Conspiracy theories project not only an interpretive logic of reality that leads people to believe in sinister machinations, but also imply a theory of power that requires mobilizing and taking action. Through history, many have fallen for the allure of conspiratorial narratives, even the most unsubstantiated and bizarre. This book traces the main conspiracy theories developing in Latin America since late colonial times and into the present, and identifies the geopolitical, socioeconomic and cultural scenarios of their diffusion and mobilization. Students and scholars of Latin American history and politics, as well as comparatists, will find in this book penetrating analyses of major conspiratorial designs in this multi-state region of the Americas.

The Nature of Conspiracy Theories

Author : Michael Butter
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1509540830
Total Pages : 146 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (95 download)

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Book Synopsis The Nature of Conspiracy Theories by : Michael Butter

Download or read book The Nature of Conspiracy Theories written by Michael Butter and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conspiracy theories seem to be proliferating today. Long relegated to a niche existence, conspiracy theories are now pervasive, and older conspiracy theories have been joined by a constant stream of new ones – that the USA carried out the 9/11 attacks itself, that the Ukrainian crisis was orchestrated by NATO, that we are being secretly controlled by a New World Order that keep us docile via chemtrails and vaccinations. Not to mention the moon landing that never happened. But what are conspiracy theories and why do people believe them? Have they always existed or are they something new, a feature of our modern world? In this book Michael Butter provides a clear and comprehensive introduction to the nature and development of conspiracy theories. Contrary to popular belief, he shows that conspiracy theories are less popular and influential today than they were in the past. Up to the 1950s, the Western world regarded conspiracy theories as a legitimate form of knowledge and it was therefore normal to believe in them. It was only after the Second World War that this knowledge was delegitimized, causing conspiracy theories to be banished from public discourse and relegated to subcultures. The recent renaissance of conspiracy theories is linked to internet which gives them wider exposure and contributes to the fragmentation of the public sphere. Conspiracy theories are still stigmatized today in many sections of mainstream culture but are being accepted once again as legitimate knowledge in others. It is the clash between these domains and their different conceptions of truth that is fuelling the current debate over conspiracy theories.

Conspiracy Narratives in Roman History

Author : Victoria Emma Pagán
Publisher : University of Texas Press
ISBN 13 : 9780292705616
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (56 download)

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Book Synopsis Conspiracy Narratives in Roman History by : Victoria Emma Pagán

Download or read book Conspiracy Narratives in Roman History written by Victoria Emma Pagán and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covering events from 186 B.C.E. to 65 C.E., this book explains the prevalence of conspiracy in the Roman literary imagination and confirms the importance of Josephus and Appian to the development of Roman historical thought."--BOOK JACKET.

Conspiracy Theories

Author : Jeffrey B. Webb
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1440877718
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (48 download)

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Book Synopsis Conspiracy Theories by : Jeffrey B. Webb

Download or read book Conspiracy Theories written by Jeffrey B. Webb and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2024-04-04 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a comprehensive guide to the history and current shape of conspiracy theories in American life, including the findings of research seeking to understand their origins, type, function, and widespread appeal. This all-in-one resource provides an accessible overview of conspiracy theories past and present in all their many forms. Taking an even-handed, scholarly approach, the book outlines the longer history of conspiracy theories, starting with Ancient Greece and Rome and continuing the story up to the present day, including analysis of 9/11, anti-vaccine, COVID, and QAnon theories. It surveys an array of current books and articles to try to understand why people believe in and act on outlandish and evidence-free conspiracy theories. Notably, this resource also outlines the problems created by untrue conspiracy theories in terms of their negative impact on public debate, trust in others, and efforts to nurture an informed and educated citizenry. Instead, many conspiracy claims have become sources of misinformation, cynicism, and polarization. This book will benefit anyone who seeks a pathway through our current "epistemic crisis" in which the lines between fact and fiction-and between truth and falsehood-have become blurred.

Plots, Designs, and Schemes

Author : Michael Butter
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 3110367947
Total Pages : 332 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis Plots, Designs, and Schemes by : Michael Butter

Download or read book Plots, Designs, and Schemes written by Michael Butter and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2014-05-21 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plots, Designs, and Schemes is the first study that investigates the long history of American conspiracy theories from the perspective of literary and cultural studies. Since research in these fields has so far almost exclusively focused on the contemporary period, the book concentrates on the time before 1960. Four detailed case studies offer close readings of the Salem witchcraft crisis of 1692, fears of Catholic invasion during the 1830s to 1850s, antebellum conspiracy theories about slavery, and anxieties about Communist subversion during the 1950s. The study primarily engages with factual texts, such as sermons, pamphlets, political speeches, and confessional narratives, but it also analyzes how fears of conspiracy were dramatized and negotiated in fictional texts, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown (1835) or Hermann Melville's Benito Cereno (1855). The book offers three central insights: 1. The American predilection for conspiracy theorizing can be traced back to the co-presence and persistence of a specific epistemological paradigm that relates all effects to intentional human action, the ideology of republicanism, and the Puritan heritage. 2. Until far into the twentieth century, conspiracy theories were considered a perfectly legitimate form of knowledge. As such, they shaped how many Americans, elites as well as “common” people, understood and reacted to historical events. The Revolutionary War and the Civil War would not have occurred without widespread conspiracy theories. 3. Although most extant research claims the opposite, conspiracy theories have never been as marginal and unimportant as in the past decades. Their disqualification as stigmatized knowledge only occurred around 1960, and coincided with a shift from theories that detect conspiracies directed against the government to conspiracies by the government.

Counterfeit Politics

Author : David Kelman
Publisher : Bucknell Studies in Latin American Literature and Theory
ISBN 13 : 9781611485875
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (858 download)

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Book Synopsis Counterfeit Politics by : David Kelman

Download or read book Counterfeit Politics written by David Kelman and published by Bucknell Studies in Latin American Literature and Theory. This book was released on 2015-04-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Counterfeit Politics, David Kelman reassesses the political significance of conspiracy theory. Traditionally, political theory has sought to banish the "paranoid style" from the "proper" domain of politics. But if conspiracy theory lies outside the sphere of legitimate politics, why do these narratives continue to haunt political life? Counterfeit Politics accounts for the seemingly ineradicable nature of conspiracy theory by arguing that all political statements ultimately take the form of conspiracy theory. Through careful readings of works by Ernest Hemingway, Ricardo Piglia, Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Jorge Luis Borges, Ishmael Reed, Jorge Volpi, Rigoberta Menchú, and Ángel Rama, Kelman demonstrates that conspiracy narratives bear witness to an illegitimate or "counterfeit" secret that cannot be fully recognized, understood, and controlled. Even though the secret is not authorized to speak, this "silence" is nevertheless precisely what gives the secret its force. Kelman goes on to suggest that all political statements--even those that do not seem "paranoid"--are constitutively illegitimate or counterfeit, since they always narrate this unresolved play of legitimacy between an official or authorized plot and an unofficial or unauthorized plot (a "complot"). In short, Counterfeit Politics argues that politics only takes place as "conspiracy theory."

Conspiracy Narratives South of the Border

Author : Gonzalo Soltero
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000207374
Total Pages : 236 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (2 download)

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Book Synopsis Conspiracy Narratives South of the Border by : Gonzalo Soltero

Download or read book Conspiracy Narratives South of the Border written by Gonzalo Soltero and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-10-25 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines four conspiracy narratives from Mexico that push the boundaries of conspiracy research in a new direction. They include narratives about Lee Harvey Oswald's visit to Mexico City, shortly before he apparently assassinated JFK, and street gangs across borders and how some of our worst fears are projected into them. Mexico is a fertile terrain for conspiracy theories due to its complex social environment and its proximity to the United States, which not only made it a strategic platform during the Cold War but also today’s land of bad hombres that according to Donald Trump should be fended off with a wall. Conspiracy theories are always narrative in nature, telling us about the state of the world and the actors behind such states of affairs. This narrativity tends to be so enthralling that they have increasingly become the substance of entertainment and even politics. This volume analyses Mexican conspiracy narratives, explaining how they produce meaning in a variety of different social and political contexts. This book will be of interest to researchers of conspiracy theories, crime and its representations, Mexican politics and society, and US–Latin American relations.

Conspiracy Encyclopedia

Author : Thom Burnett
Publisher : Franz Steiner Verlag
ISBN 13 : 9781843403814
Total Pages : 638 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (38 download)

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Book Synopsis Conspiracy Encyclopedia by : Thom Burnett

Download or read book Conspiracy Encyclopedia written by Thom Burnett and published by Franz Steiner Verlag. This book was released on 2006 with total page 638 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conspiracies are everywhere. they are the lifeblood of politics, business and our daily lives. this truly international and all-embracing encyclopedia explains the details of the world's major popular conspiracies, listing them chronologically under subject matter and cross-referencing them continually (because so many conspiracy theories interact on some level). Conspiracies are often international in their sweep and their impact. the brutal stabbing of Julius Caesar (the conspiracy which has defined political assassinations ever since) plunged the Roman Empire into civil war, which then engulfed much of the known western world. More recently the Cambridge spies (Philby, Blunt, MacLean and Burgess) helped Russia throughout WWII and then re-defined the Cold War afterwards, Philby's defection casting a 30-year shadow over CIA/Anglo-American relations. though conspiracies define our everyday lives, there is no body of serious academic research to understand their role, nature or defining characteristics. Most historians prefer to adhere to the cock-up theory of history, in which everything happens by accident or incompetence. Although this view is favoured by academics and historians, it is rejected by a large part of the general public who prefer the evidence of their own lives. However they consume their media, what they see is a mesh of conspiracies that define the texture of their everyday lives, often for the worst. Most people believe that there is a grain of truth in most theories about conspiracies. this book is for them.

Conspiracy theory and American foreign policy

Author : Tim Aistrope
Publisher : Manchester University Press
ISBN 13 : 1784997811
Total Pages : 197 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (849 download)

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Book Synopsis Conspiracy theory and American foreign policy by : Tim Aistrope

Download or read book Conspiracy theory and American foreign policy written by Tim Aistrope and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2016-05-01 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conspiracy theory and American foreign policy examines the relationship between secrecy, power and interpretation around international controversy, where foreign policy orthodoxy comes up hard against alternative interpretations. It does so in the context of US foreign policy during the War on Terror, a conflict that was covert and conspiratorial to its core. Offering a new dimension to debates on post-truth politics, this book critically examines the ‘Arab-Muslim paranoia narrative’: the view that Arab-Muslim resentment towards America is motivated to some degree by a paranoid perception of American power in the Middle East. This narrative is traced from its roots in a post-War liberal understanding of populism through to foreign policy debates about the origins of 9/11, to the strategic heart of the Bush Administration’s War of Ideas. Balancing conceptual innovation with detailed case analysis, Aistrope provides a window into the ideological commitments of the US War on Terror. Offering a fascinating insight into conspiracy and paranoia, this book is essential reading for those interested in the relationship between secrecy, power, and contemporary politics.

Conspiracy Theories

Author : Joseph E Uscinski
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1538173263
Total Pages : 247 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (381 download)

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Book Synopsis Conspiracy Theories by : Joseph E Uscinski

Download or read book Conspiracy Theories written by Joseph E Uscinski and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2023-03-15 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second edition, updated throughout and now including Covid-19 and the 2020 presidential election and aftermath, introduces students to the research into conspiracy theories and the people who propagate and believe them. In doing so, it addresses the psychological, sociological, and political sources of conspiracy theorizing.

Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them

Author : Joseph E. Uscinski
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190844108
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (98 download)

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Book Synopsis Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them by : Joseph E. Uscinski

Download or read book Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them written by Joseph E. Uscinski and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-16 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conspiracy theories are inevitable in complex human societies. And while they have always been with us, their ubiquity in our political discourse is nearly unprecedented. Their salience has increased for a variety of reasons including the increasing access to information among ordinary people, a pervasive sense of powerlessness among those same people, and a widespread distrust of elites. Working in combination, these factors and many other factors are now propelling conspiracy theories into our public sphere on a vast scale. In recent years, scholars have begun to study this genuinely important phenomenon in a concerted way. In Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them, Joseph E. Uscinski has gathered forty top researchers on the topic to provide both the foundational tools and the evidence to better understand conspiracy theories in the United States and around the world. Each chapter is informed by three core questions: Why do so many people believe in conspiracy theories? What are the effects of such theories when they take hold in the public? What can or should be done about the phenomenon? Combining systematic analysis and cutting-edge empirical research, this volume will help us better understand an extremely important, yet relatively neglected, phenomenon.

Russia Today and Conspiracy Theories

Author : Ilya Yablokov
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000433595
Total Pages : 93 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (4 download)

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Book Synopsis Russia Today and Conspiracy Theories by : Ilya Yablokov

Download or read book Russia Today and Conspiracy Theories written by Ilya Yablokov and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 93 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Russian international media outlet Russia Today (RT) has been widely accused in the Western world of producing government propaganda and conspiracy theories. This book explores for the first time the role that conspiracy theories actually play in the network’s broadcasts. More than this, it provides the first ever study of how the Russian government engages with conspiracy theories in the international arena, with a particular focus on the use of conspiracy theories as an instrument of public diplomacy. RT was established in 2005 to represent Russia to the world, and to present a Russian perspective on global events. Whilst some of RT’s more overtly conspiratorial output has been taken off the air, the network remains a source of significant concern for governments and intelligence agencies in Europe and North America. Now, more than ever, policymakers, journalists, academics, and intelligence services alike seek to understand the role RT plays in the Russian government’s foreign policy agenda. The authors use RT as a case study to investigate how global communication technologies influence the development and dissemination of conspiracy theories, which are also an important component of the post-Soviet Russian intellectual landscape and Kremlin-sponsored political discourse. This book will appeal to students and scholars of Politics and International Relations, Russian Studies, and Conspiracy Theories.

American Conspiracy Theories

Author : Joseph E. Uscinski
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0199351813
Total Pages : 235 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (993 download)

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Book Synopsis American Conspiracy Theories by : Joseph E. Uscinski

Download or read book American Conspiracy Theories written by Joseph E. Uscinski and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conspiracies theories are some of the most striking features in the American political landscape: the Kennedy assassination, aliens at Roswell, subversion by Masons, Jews, Catholics, or communists, and modern movements like Birtherism and Trutherism. But what do we really know about conspiracy theories? Do they share general causes? Are they becoming more common? More dangerous? Who is targeted and why? Who are the conspiracy theorists? How has technology affected conspiracy theorising? This book offers the first century-long view of these issues.

Conspiracy Literature in Early Renaissance Italy

Author : Marta Celati
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192608975
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (926 download)

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Book Synopsis Conspiracy Literature in Early Renaissance Italy by : Marta Celati

Download or read book Conspiracy Literature in Early Renaissance Italy written by Marta Celati and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-17 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conspiracy has been a political phenomenon throughout history, relevant to any form of power from antiquity to the post-modern era. This means of resistance against power was prevalent during the Renaissance, and the Italian fifteenth century, in particular, can be regarded as an 'age of plots'. This book offers the first full-length investigation of Italian Renaissance literature on the topic of conspiracy. This literature covered a range of different genres and it enjoyed widespread diffusion during the second half of the fifteenth century, when the development of this literary production was connected with the affirmation of centralized political thought and princely ideology in Italian states. The centrality of conspiracies also emerges in the sixteenth century in Machiavelli's work, where the topic is closely interlaced with problems of building political consensus and management of power. This volume presents case studies of the most significant humanist texts (representative of different states, literary genres, and of prominent authors—Alberti, Poliziano, Pontano—and minor, yet important, literati), and it also investigates Machiavelli's political and historical works. Through interdisciplinary analysis, this study traces the evolution of literature on plots in early Renaissance Italy. It points out the key function of the classical tradition and the recurring narrative approaches, the historiographical techniques, and the ideological angles that characterize the literary transfiguration of the topic. This volume also offers a reconsideration of the complex facets of humanist political literature that played a crucial role in the development of a new theory of statecraft.

Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theory in Early Modern Europe

Author : Barry Coward
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1351949497
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (519 download)

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Book Synopsis Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theory in Early Modern Europe by : Barry Coward

Download or read book Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theory in Early Modern Europe written by Barry Coward and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For many generations, Guy Fawkes and his gunpowder plot, the 'Man in the Iron Mask' and the 'Devils of Loudun' have offered some of the most compelling images of the early modern period. Conspiracies, real or imagined, were an essential feature of early modern life, offering a seemingly rational and convincing explanation for patterns of political and social behaviour. This volume examines conspiracies and conspiracy theory from a broad historical and interdisciplinary perspective, by combining the theoretical approach of the history of ideas with specific examples from the period. Each contribution addresses a number of common themes, such as the popularity of conspiracy theory as a mode of explanation through a series of original case studies. Individual chapters examine, for example, why witches, religious minorities and other groups were perceived in conspiratorial terms, and how far, if at all, these attitudes were challenged or redefined by the Enlightenment. Cultural influences on conspiracy theory are also discussed, particularly in those chapters dealing with the relationship between literature and politics. As prevailing notions of royal sovereignty equated open opposition with treason, almost any political activity had to be clandestine in nature, and conspiracy theory was central to interpretations of early modern politics. Factions and cabals abounded in European courts as a result, and their actions were frequently interpreted in conspiratorial terms. By the late eighteenth century it seemed as if this had begun to change, and in Britain in particular the notion of a 'loyal opposition' had begun to take shape. Yet the outbreak of the French Revolution was frequently explained in conspiratorial terms, and subsequently European rulers and their subjects remained obsessed with conspiracies both real and imagined. This volume helps us to understand why.

Counterfeit Politics

Author : David Kelman
Publisher : Bucknell University Press
ISBN 13 : 1611484154
Total Pages : 202 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (114 download)

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Book Synopsis Counterfeit Politics by : David Kelman

Download or read book Counterfeit Politics written by David Kelman and published by Bucknell University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-20 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Counterfeit Politics, David Kelman reassesses the political significance of conspiracy theory. Traditionally, political theory has sought to banish the “paranoid style” from the “proper” domain of politics. But if conspiracy theory lies outside the sphere of legitimate politics, why do these narratives continue to haunt political life? Counterfeit Politics accounts for the seemingly ineradicable nature of conspiracy theory by arguing that all political statements ultimately take the form of conspiracy theory. Through careful readings of works by Ernest Hemingway, Ricardo Piglia, Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Jorge Luis Borges, Ishmael Reed, Jorge Volpi, Rigoberta Menchú, and Ángel Rama, Kelman demonstrates that conspiracy narratives bear witness to an illegitimate or “counterfeit” secret that cannot be fully recognized, understood, and controlled. Even though the secret is not authorized to speak, this “silence” is nevertheless precisely what gives the secret its force. Kelmangoes on to suggest that all political statements—even those that do not seem “paranoid”—are constitutively illegitimate or counterfeit, since they always narrate this unresolved play of legitimacy between an official or authorized plot and an unofficial or unauthorized plot (a “complot”). In short, Counterfeit Politics argues that politics only takes place as “conspiracy theory.”