2022W
Boris Buden
Institut für Kunst und Gesellschaft, Cross-Disciplinary Strategies
2024W, wissenschaftliches Seminar (SEW), 4.0 ECTS, 2.0 SemStd., LV-Nr. S04491
Conspiracy Theories: Symptoms, Practices, Theories
It is common knowledge that we live in a time of conspiracy theories. They thrive all over the place and their audiences steadily grow. To contain the spreading of conspiracy theories surrounding the Coronavirus Pandemic the European Commission even published a manual – a checklist – on how to identify them. Already in the 1990s – well before the widespread use of social media – Fredric Jameson had pointed out that the proliferation of conspiracy theories should be seen in relation to the demise of critiques of the social totality. He defined them as “the poor person’s cognitive mapping in the postmodern age.” Today conspiracy theories have been recognized as dangerous challenge to the existing democratic order and are often discussed in the context of the so-called post-truth condition. However, the reason behind their increasing proliferation is an overall epistemic precarity as one of the main cognitive, cultural, and political features of our age. It is the hard fact that we cannot trust our political elites, the democratically elected officials of our states who are known to lie; that we cannot trust our scientists whom one can buy and sell; that we cannot trust our main-stream media that all too often disseminate propaganda instead of information.
The class will discuss the problem of conspiracy theories using the following texts:
Matthew D’Ancona, Post Truth: The New War on Truth and How to Fight Back.
European Commission, “Identifying Conspiracy Theories”. https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/coronavirus-response/fighting-disinformation/identifying-conspiracy-theories_en
Ivan Illich, „The Cultivation of Conspiracy“, 1998.
https://pudel.samerski.de/pdf/Illich98Conspiracy.pdf
Joseph Masco and Lisa Wedeen (Ed.), Conspiracy/Theory, Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2024.
Consists in active participation and contribution (discursive, textual, and performative).
The module grading is based on the mentioned contribution, active in-class participation and
“Students from other departments or universities will be given a place on the course subject to room capacities.”
conspiracy theory, social totality, epistemic precarity, post-truth, social media, cognitive mapping
18. November 2024, 10:00–16:00 KUG Lecture Room PSK 149
19. November 2024, 10:00–16:00 KUG Lecture Room PSK 149
25. November 2024, 10:00–16:00 KUG Lecture Room PSK 149
26. November 2024, 10:00–14:30 KUG Lecture Room PSK 149
Ab 26. August 2024, 00:00
Per Online Anmeldung
Cross-Disciplinary Strategies (Master): Studienfelder 4-6: Studienfeld 4: Philosophie 569/022.04
Cross-Disciplinary Strategies (Bachelor): Philosophie: Vertiefungs-/Anwendungsphase 700/003.20
Mitbelegung: möglich
Besuch einzelner Lehrveranstaltungen: möglich