Conspiracy theories are everywhere in post-war American culture. From postmodern novels to The X-Files, and
from gangsta rap to feminist polemic, there is a widespread suspicion that sinister forces are conspiring to take
control of our national destiny, our minds, and even our bodies. Conspiracy explanations can no longer be dismissed
as the paranoid delusions of far-right crackpots. Indeed, they have become a necessary response to a risky and
increasingly globalized world, in which everything is connected but nothing adds up.
Peter Knight provides an engaging and cogent analysis of the development of conspiracy culture, from 1960s' countercultural
suspicions about the authorities to the 1990s, where a paranoid attitude is both routine and ironic. Conspiracy
Culture analyzes conspiracy narratives about familiar topics like the Kennedy assassination, alien abduction, body
horror, AIDS, crack cocaine, the New World Order, as well as more unusual ones like the conspiracies of patriarchy
and white supremacy.
Conspiracy Culture shows how Americans have come to distrust not only the narratives of the authorities, but even
the authority of narrative itself to explain What Is Really Going On. From the complexities of Thomas Pynchon's
novels to the endless mysteries of The X-Files, Knight argues that contemporary conspiracy culture is marked by
an infinite regress of suspicion. Trust no one, because we have met the enemy and it is us.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction:Conspiracy/Theory
1. Conpiracy/Culture
2. Plotting the Kennedy Assassination
3. The Problem with No Name:Feminism and the Figuration of Conspiracy
4. Fear of a Black Planet:"Black Paranoia" and the Aesthetics of Conspiracy
5. Body Panic
6. Everything Is Connected