Conspiracy Theories and being a 'Public' Academic with M. Butter Artwork

Talking American Studies

Dedicated to highlighting currents of North American Studies in Germany.Also on spotify and itunes, or follow Talking American Studies on twitter/facebook/instagram!About the host/creator: I'm Verena Adamik, and I teach and research American Studies at the University of Potsdam. For my PhD project, I investigated the link between the United States' national narrative and utopianism by looking at fictional renditions of utopian communities (i.e. 'communes') in the nineteenth century. I am currently turning some of my findings into a book. Further research interests include horror fiction and African American writing, specifically sf, horror, and literary responses to White supremacist discourse. Because I miss going to seminars and lectures, I decided to just get scholars to spill their intellectual beans in this podcast.

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Talking American Studies

Conspiracy Theories and being a 'Public' Academic with M. Butter

October 17, 2020 • Verena Adamik (and others) • Season 1 • Episode 7

… all about conspiracy theories – Prof. Michael Butter (University Tübingen) talks about the history of conspiracy theories and their status today, about relating academic research to public audiences, and the importance of engaging with so-called unloved subjects. Last but not least - we're talking American Studies! Hosted by Verena Adamik & Anja Söyünmez (University of Potsdam)

Featuring

Prof. Dr. Michael Butter https://uni-tuebingen.de/fakultaeten/philosophische-fakultaet/fachbereiche/neuphilologie/englisches-seminar/sections/american-studies/faculty-staff/prof-dr-michael-butter/

Dr. Verena Adamik https://vadamik.wordpress.com/

Bibliography

Agamben, Giorgio. “Una domanda.” Quodlibet, April 13, 2020. https://www.quodlibet.it/giorgio-agamben-una-domanda

Birchall, Clare. Knowledge Goes Pop: from Conspiracy Theory to Gossip. Berg,2006.

Butter, Michael. Nichts ist, wie es scheint: Über Verschwörungstheorien. Suhrkamp, 2018.

Butter, Michael. “Einfache Wahrheiten für eine komplizierte Welt.” Deutschlandfunk Nova Hörsaal, 2008.

Butter, Michael. Plots, Designs, and Schemes: American Conspiracy Theories from the Puritans to the Present. de Gruyter, 2014.

Butter, Michael; Knight, Peter. Routledge Handbook of Conspiracy Theories. Routledge, 2020.

Butter, Michael. The Epitome of Evil: Hitler in American Fiction, 1939-2002. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

Butter, Michael. The Nature of Conspiracy Theories. Polity, 2020.

Butter, Michael. “Warum gibt es gerade so viele Verschwörungstheorien?” Politikstunde. bpb, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVQAShC3L2c

Fenster, Mark. Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture. U of Minnesota P, 2008.

Fielding, Nigel. “Mediating the Message: Affinity and Hostility in Research on Sensitive Topics”, Researching Sensitive Topics. Sage, 1993.

Hofstadter, Richard. “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” Harper's Magazine, 1964.

Knight, Peter. Conspiracy Culture: American Paranoia from the Kennedy Assassination to the X-Files. London: Routledge, 2001.

Lamberty, Pia. Fake Facts: Wie Verschwörungstheorien unser Denken bestimmen. Bastei, 2020.

Thalmann, Katharina.The Stigmatization of Conspiracy Theory Since the 1950s. Routledge, 2019.

Turner, Patricia A. I Heard It Through the Grapevine: Rumor in African-American Culture. U of California P, 1994.

Sanders-Mcdonagh, Erin. “Conducting ‘Dirty Research’ with Extreme Groups” Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, vol 9, no. 3, 2014.

Zeit Online – das Politikteil “Was tun, wenn der Nachbar fantasiert?” https://www.zeit.de/politik/2020-09/verschwoerungstheorien-michael-butter-corona-demos-politikpodcast

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