Contact

dr. Boris Noordenbos

Assistant Professor

University of Amsterdam

Department of Literary & Cultural Analysis

P.C.Hoofthuis 717

Spuistraat 134

1012 VB Amsterdam

020-5257030

b.noordenbos@uva.nl

News

For my ERC project “Conspiratorial Memory”, the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis will hire two PhD researchers for the period 2021-2025. You’ll find the advertisements here. The closing date for applications is June 8, 2021.

CONSPIRATORIAL MEMORY: Cultures of Suspicion in Post-Socialist Europe is a five-year research project (2021-2026), funded by the European Research Council. Focusing on Central and East European literature, film, television, commemorative rituals and online culture, it aims to take the emerging field of conspiracy theory studies to a new level. While academic inquiry into conspiracy theory is unquestionably on the rise, existing research is still overwhelmingly concentrated on Western Europe and the United States. Established perspectives also tend to treat conspiracy culture in historical and cultural isolation, neglecting its reliance on earlier events and narrative templates, and often overlooking its cross-cultural dynamics. Yet conspiracy theories never develop in a vacuum, and the project investigates their movements and exchanges, both contemporary and historical. Together with my team I illuminate the historical references, transnational interactions, and online circulations that give conspiracy theories their rhetorical and emotional momentum in the post-socialist era. Relying on a theoretical framework that enriches conspiracy research with affect studies and cultural memory studies, the project zooms in on a selection of recent conspiracy-based cultural imaginations from Poland, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.