Plots, Designs, and Schemes: American Conspiracy Theories from the Puritans to the Present (linguae & litterae, 33)

__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.

Die Schriftenreihe linguae & litterae, herausgegeben von Peter Auer, Gesa von Essen und Werner Frick, dokumentiert die wissenschaftlichen Aktivitäten der School of Language and Literature des Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS) im Bereich einer theoretisch und methodisch avancierten, interdisziplinär geöffneten Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft.
In der Linguistik liegt der Akzent auf der korpusbasierten, quantitativen und qualitativen Erforschung von Sprache, in der Literaturwissenschaft auf der komparatistisch-transdisziplinären Analyse literarischer Phänomene in ihren kulturellen Kontexten. Zugleich nimmt die Reihe die produktiven Kontakt- und Synergiezonen zwischen moderner Linguistik und Literaturwissenschaft (und den mit ihnen im Austausch stehenden Geistes-, Sozial- und Naturwissenschaften) in den Blick und sucht nach neuen, für die zeitgemäße Reformulierung des humanwissenschaftlichen Forschungscurriculums richtungsweisenden Fragestellungen und Konzepten.

Die internationale Ausrichtung der Reihe findet ihren Ausdruck in der konsequenten Mehrsprachigkeit der Bände, in denen deutsch-, englisch- und französischsprachige Beiträge, ggf. auch Artikel in italienischer und spanischer Sprache erscheinen. Jeder Einzelband wird im Rahmen eines peer-review-Verfahrens durch ein international besetztes Editorial Board begutachtet.

Pro Jahr erscheinen 2-4 Bände.

This study investigates the long history of American conspiracy theories. Whereas most extant research claims that conspiracy theories have never been more widespread and influential than in the present, the book demonstrates that the opposite is the case. Until far into the twentieth century, conspiracy theories were considered a perfectly legitimate form of knowledge. They shaped how many Americans understood and reacted to historical events A study that investigates the long history of American conspiracy theories. Whereas most extant research claims that conspiracy theories have never been more widespread and influential than in the present, it demonstrates that the opposite is the case.