AHA Session 41
Friday, January 3, 2025: 3:30 PM-5:00 PM
New York Ballroom East (Sheraton New York, Third Floor)
Chair:
Andreas Guidi, Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales
Papers:
Comment:
Naor Ben-Yehoyada, Columbia University
Session Abstract
Views of the world steeped in conspiratorial thinking and conspiracy narratives have come to dominate contemporary political culture. While conspiracy myths might spread and mutate faster in our digital age, conspiratorial explanations of who and what controls the world and that that control is hidden and has nefarious ends, have existed and shaped politics for centuries. One can trace visual, structural, and rhetorical commonalities among conspiratorial discourses going back centuries, as they recur over time with shared traces. With this in mind, this panel looks at conspiracy theories over time, searching for their origins, uses, and diffusion. The panel addresses three particularly resilient and recurring conspiracy myths – the blood libel, the myth of Judeobolshevism, and the conspiracy theory around a communist plot for global domination -- and connects them both to their historical moment of origin and their evolution over time.
See more of: AHA Sessions