Truth, Lies, and Conspiracies

Catalog description

Throughout the history of the United States, people have understood their lives and the world around them in many ways. Often, as political theorist Richard Hofstadter wrote, Americans have done so in "paranoid style." This course explores how Americans have argued over the "truth" since the founding of the nation and at several key moments of social and political tension through to the present. We will think critically as we seek throughlines in the long history of conspiratorial thinking that has animated so many to perceive dark plots, often elaborately conceived, behind events of the day. We will ask several key questions. Have Americans always agreed on their story? What role have facts and falsehoods played in major societal changes? How can we understand essential "truths" in American history when "lies" have always accompanied them? Students will gain historical context about what it means to live in a supposedly "post-truth era," learn how historians have approached and disagreed about the concept of "truth" in studying the past, and grapple with hard truths as we attempt to understand America's contested realities.