Whispers in the Echo Chamber: Folklore and the Role of Conspiracy Theory in Contemporary Society Edited by Jesse A. Fivecoate and Andrea Kitta

Whispers in the Echo Chamber: Folklore and the Role of Conspiracy Theory in Contemporary Society (University of Wisconsin Press) makes the case that conspiracy theories are fundamentally a folklore genre, akin to and often involving other belief narratives like rumor and legend. The editors and contributors show that studying conspiracy theories using the tools of folkloristics is a fruitful and necessary analytical exercise. The volume’s three parts lay out folkloristic approaches to conspiracy theories; ways folkloristics can help us understand how conspiracy theories are constructed; and how the genre of conspiracy theories interacts with particular, contemporary political contexts.

Whispers in the Echo Chamber is edited by Jesse A. Fivecoate, a folklorist and sociocultural anthropologist with a PhD from Indiana University, and Andrea Kitta, a a folklorist and a professor of multicultural and transnational literature in the Department of English at East Carolina University, with contributions from Bill Ellis, David Guignion, Jeannie Banks Thomas, John Bodner, Ian Brodie, Lisa M. Ruch, Timothy R. Tangherlini, Shadi Shahsavari, Pavan Holur, Vwani Roychowdhury, Afsane Rezaei, Anika Wilson, Sandra Grady, Darin DeWitt, and Matthew D. Atkinson.