scholarly journals Jacob Brafman’s The Book of the Kahal: the Jew Who Was Afraid of Jewishness

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 231-247
Author(s):  
George Prokhorov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Rhetorical Devices

The article discusses the narrative structure and rhetorical devices of The Book of the Kahal (1869)– an influential pamphlet by the baptized Jew Jacob Brafman. The book breathes conspiracy theories and portrays the Jews as a state within a state governed by the Kahal and regulated by the Talmud, even when they try to pass themselves as a confession to fool gullible Christians. In line with the traditions of collaboration literature, the author, obsessed with the glorious Imperial might and full of disdain for all things Jewish, demands that the Jews abandon their treacherous “multifaceted” identity in favor of Russia.

Conspiracy culture in Homeland (2011–2015)

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 152-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Delphine Letort
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Television Series ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Political Message

Homeland is built on the conspiracy plots that provide entertaining suspense in the television series, which also reflects the fear culture that has developed in the wake of 9/11. CIA agent Carrie Mathison embodies the paranoid framework that undergirds the narrative, leading her to question the visible and to posit conspiracy theories behind coincidental events. Appropriating the narrative tropes of the gaslight films, Homeland enhances the unstable narrative structure produced by the combination of conspiratorial thinking with the serial. This article explores five seasons of Homeland and analyses the conspiratorial narrative it unfolds, highlighting how the serial format allows the creators to envision several scenarios illustrating individual and mass manipulation on the international stage, promoting a signifying system that blurs the final political message of the series.

scholarly journals The Practical Past as a Field of Metahistorical Approach. Some Remarks on the Contemporary Situation of Historical Theory

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-123
Author(s):  
Tamás Kisantal
Keyword(s):  
Public History ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Narrative Methods ◽  
Rhetorical Devices ◽  
The Social ◽  
Unofficial History ◽  
Hayden White ◽  
Critical Historiography ◽  
Historical Theory

Abstract The narrative theory of history that studies historical works from the viewpoint of their narrative, rhetorical devices, and ideological strategies highly emphasized the necessity of renewing historiography. In his early essays, the trend’s founding father, Hayden White, positioned history between art and science or fiction and reality and defined the role of historical theory as a kind of “critical historiography” that is both a criticism of actual historical works and a prescriptive theoretical approach with which the contemporary historical discipline can reform itself. This renewal basically meant a formal reorganization with which the historical works and the historical discipline itself could come closer to literature by using narrative methods and rhetorical devices of recent literary works and films. However, after the 1990s, White and his followers had to face some radical problems that compelled them to rethink the role of recent historiography and their theoretical positions as well. Firstly, the so-called “new” historiography did not actually come into existence, or at least not in a way they suggested. Secondly, new forms of “unofficial” history, from varieties of public history through conspiracy theories to contemporary historical fictions, forced to reconceptualize the task of historical theory and its approach to the social and ideological functions of “official” history. Analysing some recently published works of this trend (above all, Hayden White’s concept of “modernist event” and his distinction between two forms of the past, theoretical and practical), my essay tries to define the situation of historical theory among the forms of contemporary historical experience.

Conspiracy theories and UFOs

Diogenes ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 039219212092453
Author(s):  
Damien Karbovnik
Keyword(s):  
Wide Spectrum ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Conspiracy Theory ◽  
Global Approach ◽  
Conspiracy Theories

Ever since UFOs were first spotted in the sky in 1947, many theories have sought to explain these apparitions that defy science. Some of them lend weight to conspiracy theories. Even though there is a wide spectrum of conspiracies involving a certain amount of people and organizations, the purpose of this article will be to follow one particular author’s point of view, Jimmy Guieu’s, namely because of the global approach that he favors. Guieu, a pioneer of ufology, followed its evolution up until his death in 2000 and tried, through his many works, to offer some enlightening information on UFOs. Ranging from Black-out to the secret government embodied by the MJ-12, he patiently assembled the pieces of a puzzle whose final product takes the form of “romans-vérité”. Although he remains a rather marginal author, some approaches similar to Jimmy Guieu’s can be seen on television in widely distributed productions; this will allow us to put forward the existence of a recurrent narrative structure in the alien conspiracy theory.

Conspiracy theories buffer against low social status

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Wetherell ◽  
James Davis ◽  
Patrick Henry
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Conspiracy Theories

The epic battle against coronavirus misinformation and conspiracy theories

Nature ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 581 (7809) ◽  
pp. 371-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Ball ◽  
Amy Maxmen
Keyword(s):  
Conspiracy Theories

Toxicity in Themes of Control: An Analysis of the Anglo-Western Cancer Rhetoric in A Monster Calls

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 117-129
Author(s):  
Natali Cavanagh
Keyword(s):  
Western Culture ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
The World

While infection has always haunted civilizations around the world, there are very few diseases that have had as much of an impact on Western culture as cancer has. The abundance of bereavement literature about characters with cancer begs the question; why cancer? This paper discusses ways in which cancer narratives reinforce Western obsession with control, through the lens of rhetoric and narrative structure. The author will specifically discuss how Patrick Ness’ 2011 novel, A Monster Calls, combats modern illness and cancer narratives and challenges themes of control threaded into Western culture

Chesterton, Apologetics, and the Art of Positioning

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-51
Author(s):  
David Pickering
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Rhetorical Devices

This article analyses G.K. Chesterton's positioning of himself as an apologist in relation to his audience. It argues that he deployed a set of rhetorical devices that enabled him to create common ground with his readers. He used these devices to present himself as a friend, and to claim that he presented religious questions to his readers in the manner of an unbiased explorer, in spite of his own faith commitments. As part of this strategy, he restricted the range of theology he used in his apologetics so as to remain as far as possible within boundaries his non-religious readers could easily relate to. The article concludes with reflections concerning Chesterton's influence on some of the Inklings and his relevance for contemporary apologetics.

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