Conspiracy theories

Dr. Dave Rich

No discussion of contemporary antisemitism can be complete without examining its deeply conspiratorial character. Throughout the course we’ve seen how myths involving Jewish control and power have come to surface again and again, leading, at times, to disastrous results. Let us further examine the place these conspiracy theories hold in contemporary antisemitism.

What place do conspiracy theories hold in the way antisemitism is expressed today?

References

• Butter, Michael, ed., Conspiracy Theories in the United States and the Middle East: A Comparative Approach (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014).

• Byford, Jovan, Conspiracy Theories: A Critical Introduction (New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).

• Kaplan, Jeffrey, “Real Paranoids Have Real Enemies: The Genesis of the Zog Discourse in the American National Socialist Subculture,” in Catherine Wessinger, ed., Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence: Historical Cases (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000).

• Laqueur, Walter, The Changing Face of Antisemitism: From Ancient Times to the Present Day (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).

• Webman, Esther, ed., The Global Impact of ‘the Protocols of the Elders of Zion’: A Century-Old Myth (Oxon : Routledge, 2011).

• Weitzman, Mark, “Globalization, Conspiracy Theory, and the Shoah,” in Robert Wistrich, ed., Holocaust Denial: The Politics of Perfidy (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012), pp. 195 – 211.