Plots: Literary Form and Conspiracy Culture

Ben Carver is a writing instructor at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. He researches and writes about speculative literature. His publications study the hopes and fears of C19 alternate history, invasion and conspiracy fiction, and lost-world narratives. Dana Craciun teaches 20th Century Literature and American Studies at the West University of Timișoara, Romania. Her other research interests include post-9/11 crises of representation, critical theory, and, more recently, conspiracy theories. Todor Hristov teaches Critical Theory and Cultural Studies at the University of Sofia, Bulgaria. He is the author of books on conspiracy theories, literary theory, governmentality, social movements, and cultural studies, as well as articles on biopolitics, governmentality, critical political economy, and new social movements.

Opening Considerations 1. Introduction 2. ‘Turning Points’: Plots and Conspiracy in Literature Section 1. Conspiracy Theories about Books and Authors 3. Erich Auerbach’s Conspiracy Theory 4. In Pursuit of Nationhood vis-à-vis Russia: The Search for Lost Manuscripts in Post-Soviet Countries 5. Conspiracy Reading: New Literary Perspectives on Paranoia in Thomas Pynchon Section 2. Plotting: Narrative Forms of Conspiracy 6. ‘The Cash Nexus’: Realism and Conspiracy in Balzac and Dickens 7. Conspiracy Narratives in Serialized Comics: An Exploration 8. Conspiracy Narratives and American Apocalypticism in The Turner Diaries Section 3. Fictional Disclosures: Conspiracy and the Politics of Truth 9. Suspicious Fictions: Fictionalising Acts in a Conspiracy Novel 10. Half-Truths: On an Instrument of Post-Truth Politics (and Conspiracy Narratives) 11. Men Make Their Own History: Conspiracy as Counter-narrative in the German Political Field