DARK POWERS. Conspiracies in History and Fiction
International Conference
University of Konstanz, Germany
Veranstalter:
Prof. Dr. Eva Horn, Dept. of German, Universität Basel
Prof. Anson Rabinbach, Dept. of History, Princeton
In Zusammenarbeit mit der Forschungsstelle Kulturtheorie
Gastgeber:
Forschungsstelle Literaturtheorie und Theorie des politischen Imaginären
Universität Konstanz
Prof. Dr. Albrecht Koschorke
PD Dr. Susanne Lüdemann
Alexander Schmitz
Termin:
12. – 14.05.2006
Veranstaltungsort:
Universität Konstanz
Raum V1001
Introduction [pdf
]
by Eva Horn (Basel)
"If we are on the outside, we assume a
conspiracy is the perfect working of a scheme.
Silent nameless men with unadorned hearts. A
conspiracy is everything that ordinary life is
not. It's the inside game, cold, sure,
undistracted, forever closed off to us. We are
the flawed ones, the innocents, trying to make
some rough sense of the daily jostle.
Conspirators have a logic and a daring beyond
our reach. All conspiracies are the same taut
story of men who find coherence in some criminal
act." (Don DeLillo: Libra)
Conspiracies have haunted our political and historical imagination since
Antiquity. In them we find a secret dimension of politics with
unpredictable alliances, invisible networks, hidden agents, and dark
subversive powers. Conspiracies – both real and mere phantasms - open up
questions on what constitutes the mechanisms for the preservation or
usurpation of power. How do conspiracies "work"? What defines their
logic, their coherent forms, and how do they preserve their secrecy?
What are the conditions for their success? Operating in the dark,
conspiracies also pose a substantial problem to historiography. This
raises the question of how secret political operations can be
reconstructed, if it is impossible to adopt the "insider" position and
if the "outsider" position is defined by the very lack of information
and documents. What can one ultimately call a "successful conspiracy" if
this success necessarily implies a breach of secrecy? The mere
possibility of conspiracies thereby also opens up a world of
interpretation and exploration, one commonly known as 'conspiracy theory'.
Instead of dismissing conspiracy theory as a merely paranoid form of
ideological extremism or “style” (Hofstadter), this conference will
analyse their historical and epistemological structure. What types of
knowledge do conspiracy theories involve and how do they (re)organize
knowledge? What are their social and political functions? Why and under
which circumstances have conspiracy theories been successful? The
conference will focus not only on questions of conspiratorial structures
in history, but also on the conspiratorial imaginary in literature, film
and popular culture. We will address questions about the fundamentally 'fictional'
elements in historiography, as well as the historical impact of
fictional elements in conspiracy theory and literature. In particular,
we will ask to what extend any narrative about the secret side of
politics and culture - whether historical or literary - inevitably
employs elements of conspiracy theory.
Guests:
Prof. Dr.
Jakob Tanner, Dept. History, Zurich
Dr. Henry Taylor, Film History, Zurich
Dr. Ralf Klausnitzer, Dept. German, Humboldt-Universität, Berlin
Prof. Michèle Lowrie, Dept. of Classics, New York University
Prof. Steven Zipperstein, Dept. of Jewish History and Culture, Stanford
Prof. Peter Knight, Dept. of English and American Studies, Manchester
Prof. Victoria Emma Pagán, Dept. of Classics, University of Wisconsin,
Madison
Dr. Thorsten Hahn, Forschungszentrum Medientheorie, Universität Köln
Prof. Timothey D. Melley, Dept. of English, Miami University of Ohio
Prof. Stefan Andriopoulos, Dept. of German, Columbia University, New
York
Prof. Marc Sageman, Dept. of Psychiatry, Harvard
Dr. Ruth Groh, History of Ideas, Heidelberg
Prof. Dr. em. Dieter Groh, History, Heidelberg
Prof. James DerDerian, Watson Institute of International Relations,
Providence
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