Plots - Literary Form & Conspiracy Culture (The Study Of Conspiracy Theories Series)

This edited collection contributes to the study of conspiracy culture by analysing the relationship of literary forms to the formation, reception, and transformation of conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories are narratives, and their narrative form provides the structure within which their ‘readers’ situate themselves when interpreting the world and its history. At the same time, conspiracist interpretations of the world may then be transmediated into works of literature and import popular discourse into narrative structures. The suppression and disappearance of books themselves may generate conspiracy theories and become co-opted into political dissent. Additionally, literary criticism itself is shown to adopt conspiracist modes of interpretation. By examining conspiracy plots as __literary plots__, with narrative, rhetorical, and symbolic characteristics, this volume is the first systematic study of how conspiracy culture in American and European history is the consequence of its interactions with literature. This book will be of great interest to researchers of conspiracy theories, literature, and literary criticism. Cover Half Title Series Information Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Notes on Contributors Opening considerations 1 Introduction Genre Narrative Patterns Rhetoric Fictionality Future Perspectives References 2 ‘Turning Points’: Plots in Conspiracy and Literature Illumination/Illuminati Stage/staged The Resources of Scepticism Training in Suspicion Refining the Medium Notes References Section 1 Conspiracy theories about books and authors 3 Erich Auerbach’s Conspiracy Theory Figural Mimesis Figures of Conspiracy Conclusion: QAnon’s Conspiracy of Figures Notes References 4 In Pursuit of Nationhood Vis-À-Vis Russia: The Search for Lost Manuscripts in Post-Soviet Countries Ukraine: Mikola Khvylovy’s Second Volume of The Woodcocks Belarus: Uladzimir Karatkevich’s Second Volume of The Ears of Rye Under Thy Sickle Discussion and Conclusion Notes References 5 Conspiracy Reading: New Literary Perspectives on Paranoia in Thomas Pynchon Introduction Pynchon Conspiracies Paranoid Readers Note References Section 2 Plotting: narrative forms of conspiracy 6 ‘The Cash Nexus’: Realism and Conspiracy in Balzac and Dickens Money Plots Realism and the Secret Society Friends and Unfriends Realism and Racism Notes References 7 Conspiracy Narratives in Serialized Comics: An Exploration The Form of Comics and the Reader’s Imagination The Comics Industry and the Writer’s Imagination Paul McCartney and the Phantom Are Dead (And Spider-Man Is Not Spider-Man) The Eternaut and the World Conspiracy Against South America The Incredible Hulk After The X Files and 9/11 Concluding Remarks: to Be Continued? Note References 8 Conspiracy Narratives and American Apocalypticism in The Turner Diaries Conspiracy and Apocalypse The Turner Diaries Conclusion References Section 3 Fictional disclosures: conspiracy and the politics of truth 9 Suspicious Fictions: The Fictionalizing Acts in a Conspiracist Novel A Vulgar Novel Reality Effect Facts From Fiction Transgressive Fiction Conspiracist Pedagogy Beyond Conspiracism Notes References 10 Half-Truths: on an Instrument of Post-Truth Politics (And Conspiracy Narratives) The Post-Factual: a New Phenomenon? Half-truths Produce Plausibility Half-truths Are (Short) Stories Half-truths Are Connective and ‘Multiversional’ Notes References 11 Men Make Their Own History: Conspiracy as Counter-Narrative in the German Political Field Conspiracy and Criticism The RAF as a Disruption of the Real The Real Is Partisan: F. J. Degenhardt’s Brandstellen (1975) The Imaginative Work of Order of the Fragmented Proletariat Terror as a Deformation of the Revolutionary Imagination Terrorism as an Imagination of Order Romantic Anti-Capitalism Conclusion: Literature and Social Criticism Notes References Index "This edited collection contributes to the study of conspiracy culture by analysing the relationship of literary forms to the formation, reception, and transformation of conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories are narratives, and their narrative form provides the structure within which their 'readers' situate themselves when interpreting the world and its history. At the same time, conspiracist interpretations of the world may then be transmediated into works of literature and import popular discourse into narrative structures. The suppression and disappearance of books themselves may generate conspiracy theories and become co-opted into political dissent. Additionally, literary criticism itself is shown to adopt conspiracist modes of interpretation. By examining conspiracy plots as literary plots, with narrative, rhetorical, and symbolic characteristics, this volume is the first systematic study of how conspiracy culture in American and European history is the consequence of its interactions with literature. This book will be of great interest to researchers of conspiracy theories, literature, and literary criticism"-- Provided by publisher