Conspiracy theories : secrecy and power in American culture / Mark Fenster.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fenster, Mark.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Conspiracies--United States.

Conspiracies.

United States.

Physical Description:

x, 371 pages ; 23 cm

Edition:

Revised and updated edition.

Place of Publication:

Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, [2008]

Summary:

JFK, Karl Marx, the pope, Aristotle Onassis, Howard Hughes, Fox Mulder, Bill Clinton, both George Bushes-all have been linked to vastly complicated global (or even galactic) intrigues. Two years after Mark Fenster first published Conspiracy Theories, the attacks of 9/11 stirred the imaginations of a new generation of believers. In this new edition of the landmark work, and the first in-depth look at the conspiracy communities that formed to debunk the 9/11 Commission Report, Fenster shows that conspiracy theories play an important role in U.S. democracy. Examining how and why conspiracy theories circulate through mass culture, he argues that dismissing them as pathological or marginal flattens contemporary politics and culture because they are-contrary to popular portrayal-an intense articulation of populism and, at their essence, are strident calls for a better, more transparent government. Fenster demonstrates once again that the people who claim someone is after us are, at least, worth hearing.

Contents:

Introduction : We're all conspiracy theorists now

Conspiracy as politics

Theorizing conspiracy politics : the problem of the "paranoid style"

When the senator met the commander : from pathology to populism

Conspiracy as cultural practice

Finding the plot : conspiracy theory as interpretation

Uncovering the plot : conspiracy theory as narrative

Plotting the rush : conspiracy, community, and play

Conspiracy communities

The prophetic plot : millennialism and Christian conspiracy theory

A failure of imagination : completing narratives of 9/11 truth

Afterword : Conspiracy theory, cultural studies, and the trouble with populism.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 291-359) and index.

ISBN:

9780816654932

081665493X

9780816654949

0816654948

OCLC:

212908873