Fall 2023 Populism & Religion Seminar 2

NB: THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

Dr. Rickard Andersson, Research Fellow in Political Science at Lund University's Centre for Theology and Religious Studies and core researcher for Beyond Truth and Lies, will give a presentation titled "Fake empowerment: On conspiracism and political judgement." More information, including an abstract, can be found on this page.

In contemporary conspiracism, people are often urged to go, by themselves, beyond what things seem to be and reveal the real truth hidden beneath surface phenomena. This is epitomized in the phrase “Do your own research!” common in conspiracist discourse. With such encouragements, conspiracism offers empowerment through factual knowledge and the ability to make independent and informed political judgements. On the other hand, its questioning and suspicion is so profound that it covers not only what is real but also the meaningfulness of realness. Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt, I highlight the important connection between a shared sense of reality and political judgement and argue that conspiracism rather impairs political judgement and offers only fake empowerment.

Rickard Andersson is a research fellow in political science at the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies, Lund University. His research is mostly on political theory and the history of Western political thought, and he is currently involved in a project concerning conspiracy theories and post-truth politics.