Course Title: Paranoid Fictions: Conspiracy in Contemporary Russian and American Culture

Course No.: REE386 Unique No:

Instructor: Keith Livers

Meeting Time & Place: TH: 2:00 – 5:00, CMA 3.108

Office Hours: M: 2:00 – 5:00

There is no denying that conspiracy thinking has become an important part of the cultural and political landscape in the past decades. The spectrum of paranoia in contemporary (American) culture extends from fiction to film and television, and most recently into the realm of political rhetoric. Meanwhile, Russia has been characterized as one of the world leaders in the production of paranoia. This course examines a wide spectrum of conspiracist expression, from such historical texts as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to the fictions of Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Viktor Pelevin and others. Since popular culture represents a major platform for the development of the conspiratorial imagination, we will also be looking at a number of pop culture artifacts that thematize conspiracy and paranoia, such as Chris Carter’s The X-Files, Oliver Stone’s JFK, and others. Secondary works by a number of contemporary scholars working in the field of conspiracy studies will provide the theoretical framework for our discussions.

Required TEXTS:

DeLillo, Don. White Noise

Dick, Philip K. Ubik

Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Demons

Pelevin, Viktor. Homo Zapiens

Pelevin, Viktor. Empire V: The Prince of Hamlet

Pynchon, Thomas. The Crying of Lot 49.

GRADING:

Research paper: 40%: Presentation: 30% Participation: 30%

WEEK ONE:

Thu: Introduction to the course.

WEEK TWO:

Thu: READ: Read pp. 1-115 in course pack. Also read chapter 3 (“Agency Panic and the Culture of Conspiracy”) in Conspiracy Nation: The Politics of Paranoia in Postwar America.

RECOMMENDED/INTERESTING: “The Paranoid-Critical Method,” by Rob Horning, The New Inquiry [http://thenewinquiry.com/blogs/marginal-utility/the- paranoid-critical-method/]. Also: Frank Bruni’s Op-Ed piece “Ever Meek, Ever Malleable,” and Ross Douthat’s Op-Ed piece “Nuts and Dolts” [NYTIMES, March 18, 2010].

WEEK THREE

Thu: Ubik (Dick)

WEEK FOUR

Thu: The Crying of Lot 49 (Pynchon). Read also pp. 117-130 in course pack.

WEEK FIVE:

Thu: White Noise (DeLillo). Read also Chapter 11 in Conspiracy Nation.

WEEK SIX:

Thu: Dr. Strangelove & The Manchurian Candidate Read: Chapter 2 in What Have They Built You to Do? [course pack]

WEEK SEVEN:

Thu: Thu: X-Files (selections). Watch from SEASON 1: Pilot, Deep Throat, Eve, E.B.E, Erlenmeyer Flask; from SEASON 2: Little Green Men, Die Hand die Verletzt, Sleepless, Anasazi, Blessing Way & Paper Clip.

Suggested Reading: Chapter 10 in Conspiracy Nation.

WEEK EIGHT

Thu: 9/11 Loose Change & Fahrenheit 9/11; “A Geopolitical Mapping of the Post 9/11 world: Exploring Conspiratorial Knowledge through Fahrenheit 9/11 and Manchurian Candidate,” (Laura Jones) [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=10&q=the+manchurian+candidate&hl=en& as_sdt=0,44 ]

WEEK NINE:

Thu: DEMONS (DOSTOEVSKY)

WEEK TEN:

Thu: DEMONS (DOSTOEVSKY)

WEEK ELEVEN:

Thu: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion; “The Antichrist as an Imminent Political Possibility”: Sergei Nilus and the Apocalyptical Reading of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” (Michael Hagemeister) [in COURSEPACK]

WEEK TWELVE:

Thu: Homo Zapiens (Viktor Pelevin); “From Homo Sovieticus to Homo Zapiens: Viktor Pelevin's Consumer Dystopia” (Sofya Khagi) [in COURSE PACK]; “Conspiracy Theory in the Post-Soviet Space” (Stefanie Ortman & John Heathershaw) [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/russ.2012.71.issue- 4/issuetoc]

WEEK THIRTEEN:

Thu: Empire V: The Prince of Hamlet

WEEK FOURTEEN:

Thu: Ilya Yablokov’s “Pussy Riot As Agent Provocateur” [online], “Conspiracy Theories as a Russian Public Diplomacy Tool,” “Conspiracy and Alternate History in Russia: A Nationalist Equation for Success?” (Marlene Laruelle) [online], “The Tower or the Labyrinth: Conspiracy, Occult and Empire Nostalgia in the Work of Viktor Pelevin and Aleksandr Prokhanov” (Keith Livers) [online]

WEEK FIFTEEN:

Thu: Night & Day Watch (Timur Bekmambetov)

WEEK SIXTEEN:

Th: Presentations