210139 SE M10: Culture and Politics (2022S)

Content

QAnon, the conspiracy theory with religious characteristics, followed by millions of social media users in the United States, has also significantly gained ground in a couple of European countries. QAnon first emerged in Europe in 2017 but has gone less noticed for more than two years. Since spring 2020, fueled by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has functioned as kind of a fire accelerant, quite a number of European QAnon branches have sprung up online. Fears stirred up by the coronavirus outbreak have significantly contributed to the increase of European QAnon followers and believers in the “Deep State” model. More and more people have meanwhile joined QAnon on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and especially on Telegram. The “theories” conveyed by QAnon perfectly fit Coronavirus conspiracy constructions such as alleged secret plans pertaining to vaccination programs or supposed dangerous manipulations by powerful individuals and arcane societies. Moreover, QAnon narratives can easily be connected to the main stories about "The Great Replacement" and "The Great Reset", propagated by diverse far right groups. QAnon’s capacity to give a home to diverse and even contradictory narratives, and its function as a conspiracy theory sponge makes it particularly attractive also for European far right politicians and activists.
The seminar takes this as a starting point for the theoretical and empirical study of other current conspiracy theories as well as their contents, structures and political implications.

Seminar Structure

- Introduction to seminar topic (course instructor);
- Presentation and discussion of seminal texts/ mandatory reading and other relevant course material;
- Oral presentation and subsequent discussion of students' draft seminar papers