Theory Conspiracy

Description

Theory Conspiracy provides a state-of-the-art collection that takes stage on the meeting and/or battlegrounds between conspiracy theory and theory-as-conspiracy. By deliberately scrambling the syntax—conspiracy theory cum theory conspiracy—it seeks to open a set of reflections on the articulation between theory and conspiracy that addresses how conspiracy might rattle the sense of theory as such. In this sense, the volume also inevitably stumbles on the recent debates on postcritique. The suspicion that our ways of reading in the humanities have been far too suspicious, if not paranoid, has gained considerable attention in a humanities continuously questioned as superfluous at best and leftist and dangerous at worst. The chapters in this volume all approach this problematic from different angles. It features clear engaging writing by a set of contributors who have published extensively on questions of paranoia, conspiracy theory, and/or the state of theory today. This collection will appeal to readers interested in conspiracy theories, critical theory, and the future of humanities. Frida Beckman is Professor of Literature at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics at Stockholm University, Sweden. Jeffrey R. Di Leo is Professor of English and Philosophy at the University of Houston-Victoria. He is founder and editor of symplokē, and Executive Director of the Society for Critical Exchange and its Winter Theory Institute. He is the author, editor, or co-editor of 35 books.