Conspiratorial Memory

Conspiratorial Memory: Conspiracy Theory and the Politics of Remembrance in Contemporary Europe argues that conspiracy theories perform memory work. Rather than merely responding to contemporary crises, they organise collective historical experience by connecting present conflicts to imagined historical continuities while projecting past struggles into the future. Developing the concept of conspiratorial memory, the volume reveals how these processes shape political imagination across contemporary Europe. Drawing on case studies from Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe, the volume examines how conspiratorial memory operates in contexts ranging from Russian propaganda and the war against Ukraine to nationalist politics in Poland, religious prophecy in Greece, and post-socialist nostalgia in Bulgaria. A concluding coda extends this framework to generative AI, asking whether AI-generated images can produce conspiratorial memory. Thus, the volume challenges the presentist bias of conspiracy theory research. It also advances cultural memory studies by demonstrating that conspiracy theories themselves perform memory work, transforming collective remembrance into a site of conspiratorial meaning-making and political mobilisation. This interdisciplinary volume is essential reading for researchers and students in conspiracy theory studies, memory studies, media and communication, cultural studies, political science, and European studies seeking new perspectives on the historical and political dynamics of contemporary conspiracy culture.