studies, reframes conspiracy theory as an acceptable response to the postmodern world, the decline of Western society, mass surveillance, late capitalist economy, and neoliberal globalization. Scholars such as Knight, Fenster, Melley, and G…———. New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998.
Hirstein, William. Brain Fiction: Self-Deception and the Riddle of Confabulation. Cambridge, MA: MIT …[^42]: Jovan Byford, Conspiracy Theories: A Critical Introduction (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 19. For an academic overview of conspiracy theories see Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary …
Fredric Jameson
philosopher · 5 mentions across 3 readings
In this course
Jameson appears as a theorist of postmodernity and late capitalism whose framework helps scholars understand conspiracy theory not as paranoia but as a rational cognitive response to fragmented, surveillant, neoliberal systems. His work provides the critical vocabulary for analyzing how individuals construct totalizing narratives when confronted with the opacity of contemporary power structures and mass data flows. Though cited more as contextual backdrop than central argument, his periodization of late capitalism enables the course's engagement with how AI and algorithmic systems intensify the conditions he identified.
Mentioned in 3 readings
Appears alongside
People mentioned in the same passages — sorted by co-occurrence weight.
Timothy Melley 3Cary Nelson 2Lawrence Grossberg 2Peter Knight 2Richard Hofstadter 2Jovan Byford 2Alex Jones 1Catherine Malabou 1Cynthia Sue Larson 1Daniel L. Schacter 1David Ingvar 1Elaine Scarry 1Endel Tulving 1George M. Marsden 1Heléne Lööw 1Jeffrey Kaplan 1John Lamb Lash 1Joseph E. LeDoux 1Kevin Kelly 1Mack Lamoureux 1Martin Lepage 1William Hirstein 1Fenster 1Gulyas 1Hofstadter 1Karl Popper 1Knight 1Melley 1Aaron John Gulyas 1Daniel Pipes 1