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Instructors: M. A. Tobias Heiland
Event type:
proseminar
Org-unit: Dept. 02 - Institute of Linguistics and Literary Studies
Displayed in timetable as:
Literary History PS
Subject:
Crediting for:
Hours per week:
2
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | -
Literature:
Bücher:
Barkun, Michael. A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2003.
Cohn, Norman. Warrant for Suicide: The Myth of the Jewish World-Conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. New York: New York: Harper & Row, 1966.
DeLillo, Don. Libra. London: Peguin, 1991.
Hamm, Mark. Apocalypse in Oklahoma: Wacoa dn Ruby Ridge Revenged. Boston Northeastern Univ. Press, 1997.
Knight, Peter. Conspiracy Culture: From the Kennedy Assassination to the X-Files. London: Routledge, 2000.
Lavery, David et al. Deny All Knowledge: Reading the X-Files. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse Univ. Press, 1996.
Moore, Allan. V For Vendetta. Vertigo: Trade Paperback, 2008.
Pynchon, Thomas. The crying of lot 49. New York: Harper & Row, 1986
DVDs:
V For Vendetta. Dir. McTeigue, James
JFK. Dir. Stone, Oliver
Official Course Description:
“Just because you’re paranoid, don’t mean they’re not after you.” This proverb which gained popularity in the 1990s is a good summary of the general conspiracy mindset. The purpose of this course shall be to take a closer look at the most popular and common conspiracy theories and their social and cultural ramifications. Many of these theories have inspired a remarkable amount of cultural (and political) output, and some scholars even claim that they reverberate in contemporary politics and societal interaction. We will also try to determine whether or not something like a meta-conspiracy theory exists, and which general attributes are vital to conspiracy theories.
Apart from literary texts, we will discuss visual representations of conspiracies in the form of motion pictures, graphic novels, and the television series The X-Files.
The purpose of this seminar is a multi-facetted and comprehensive analysis of conspiracy theories in literature and film, and thus you will be expected to actively participate in discussions, individually as well as in groups. Background information will be provided in part by me, but you are welcome to enrich our discussions with questions and ideas about the works to be analyzed and how to structure the course.
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