ABSTRACT

Theory Conspiracy provides a state-of-the-art collection that takes stage on the meeting and/or battlegrounds between conspiracy theory and theory-asconspiracy. By deliberately scrambling the syntax—conspiracy theory cum theory conspiracy—it seeks to open a set of reflections on the articulation between theory and conspiracy that addresses how conspiracy might rattle the sense of theory as such. In this sense, the volume also inevitably stumbles on the recent debates on postcritique. The suspicion that our ways of reading in the humanities have been far too suspicious, if not paranoid, has gained considerable attention in a humanities continuously questioned as superfluous at best and leftist and dangerous at worst. The chapters in this volume all approach this problematic from different angles. It features clear engaging writing by a set of contributors who have published extensively on questions of paranoia, conspiracy theory, and/or the state of theory today. This collection will appeal to readers interested in conspiracy theories, critical theory, and the future of humanities.

chapter |20 pages

Theory Conspiracy

An Introduction

part 1|74 pages

Background

chapter 1|18 pages

Being Catiline

Sex, Lies, and Coup d'états in the Liberal Order

chapter 2|22 pages

Unsettling History

How an Egyptian Conspiracy Theory Turns Time into Place

chapter 3|15 pages

The Kristeva File

part 2|52 pages

Contemporary

chapter 5|18 pages

Conspiracy and Ressentiment

The Vexed Politics of the Gilets Jaunes

chapter 7|18 pages

Don't Look Up, Birds Aren't Real

Comedy and Conspiracy

part 3|83 pages

Critical

chapter 10|22 pages

Conspiring with Theory

Popper, Antitheory, and the Epistemology of Ignorance

chapter 11|23 pages

A Sketch of Conspiratorial Reason