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This course is for anyone interested in conspiracy theories. Millions of people around the world believe in conspiracy theories like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, or that AIDS was deliberately created by governments and pharmaceutical companies, or that on September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center complex was downed not by airplanes, but by a “controlled demolition” masterminded by the United States national security state.
What are we to make of these claims? What do they say about our societies? How do they impact history, or reflect larger historical trends? How do we understand the context of these ideas? And how do we understand them in relation to objectively confirmed conspiracies, of which there are at least as many? How do we know when a conspiracy has really happened, and cannot simply be dismissed as a ‘theory’? We will grapple with these questions together through short videos, quizzes that will help you check your understanding of the material, discussion, and a final project in which you will create your own conspiracy theory.
Overview
Syllabus
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- Introduction
- This module is an introduction to the basics of conspiracy theory.
- Richard Hofstadter and the "Paranoid Style"
- This module focuses on American historian Richard Hofstadter's book "The Paranoid Style in American Politics."
- Protocols of the Elders of Zion
- This module covers the antisemitic conspiracy theories that grew from the fabricated text "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."
- World War I
- This module focuses on conspiracy theories invented to explain Word War I.
- JFK Assassination
- This module covers some of the countless theories of the assassination of American President John F. Kennedy.
- Marilyn Monroe & Princess Diana Conspiracies
- This module is an exploration of the relationship between grief and conspiracy theories.
- Conclusion
- This is it. This is the last module, in which you will create your own (original) conspiracy theory and evaluate the conspiracy theories of your fellow learners.
