Conspiracy Theory-a-Go-Go
My History of Conspiracy Theory course is starting up again this week in a different format than usual, an undergraduate seminar. That I means I will be posting interesting conspiratorial bits on the blog for that course, including my vast collection of playlists that can be used to make many bitter, unsettling, though also rocking, CDs, or to really shake your IPod to its core with anti-establishment rock speculations. First up, however, some articles rounding up for students the outburst of political paranoia we have seen this summer with the rise of the Birthers, the “death panel” issue, and gun-toting dudes outside of Obama’s speeches.
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Now playing: Army Navy – Snakes of Hawaii
via FoxyTunes
The links to your course blog appear to be broken – or to have *been* broken. I suspect the Freemasons.
Comment by David Nichols — August 24, 2009 @ 9:26 pm
Fixed! Thanks, David, for exposing this mysterious interference with my links.
Comment by Jeff Pasley — August 24, 2009 @ 10:02 pm
Interesting course on the paranoid style. For me, Hofstadter’s essay remains one of the most compelling interpretations of political behavior in U.S. historiography (Hofstadter himself has a fascinating intellectual trajectory). I wonder if scholars still classified him as “liberal consensus” after publication of “Paranoid Style.” I noticed you presented a paper on exceptionalism and the paranoid style for the Bailyn apotheosis awhile back. Never thought of analyzing the combo, although I suppose it follows from “A Note On Conspiracy” and “Fulfillment” for the 90s edition of Ideological Origins. I’m primarily interested in subsequent criticisms of the essay, especially by psychohistorians and political culture historians.
Comment by serofriend — August 26, 2009 @ 3:36 am
I think Hoftstadter does still need to be classified with the “liberal consensus” even though that term may not describe his larger views very well. (He was not a celebrator of consensus like Boorstin.) As insightful as it is, “Paranoid Style” has this dismissive, “can you believe these yahoos?” quality that limits it. The so-called “pseudo-conservative” revolt has only become more and more mainstream since 1964, and while I may change my mind when I re-read Hofstadter this week for class, I don’t remember much in his essays that would have predicted or explained that. (Likewise his digs against JFK conspiracy theories were launched just as they were about to spread deep into the culture.) Hofstadter’s interpretation has come in for heavy criticism, not always fair, from the literary scholars who written most about the history of conspiracy theory.
The “Conspiracy Theory and American Exceptionalism from the Revolution to Roswell” piece from 2000 is on my long list of conference presentations I need to revisit and develop more some day. I am not sure I would stand by every word of it today.
Comment by Jeff Pasley — August 26, 2009 @ 12:58 pm
“blog for that course” this link is broken………
Comment by Faisal — September 15, 2009 @ 3:04 am
I think all the links are fixed now. Blogging to resume shortly.
Comment by Jeff Pasley — September 15, 2009 @ 3:32 am
A mio parere, si fanno errori. Sono in grado di provarlo. Scrivere a me in PM, discuterne.
Comment by rartini — January 4, 2010 @ 10:31 pm