Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Russia as an Imaginary Country
1. Conspiracy and Paranoia: The Psychopathology of Everyday
Speech
2. Ruining Russia: Conspiracy, Apocalypse, and Melodrama
3. Lost Horizons: Russophobia, Sovereignty, and the Politics of
Identity
4. One Hundred Years of Sodom: Dystopian Liberalism and the Fear of
a Queer Planet
5. The Talking Dead: Articulating the Zombified Subject under
Putin
6. Words of Warcraft: Manufacturing Dissent in Russian and
Ukraine
Conclusion: Making Russia Great Again
Notes
Works Cited
Index
Eliot Borenstein is Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University. He is the author of Men without Women and Overkill.
A fascinating book written with self-awareness and humility, which
only lends greater credibility to his arguments overall.
*Choice*
He offers close readings of how conspiracy manifests itself in
Russian popular as well as political culture. In doing so, he
pushes our understanding of how conspiracy has transcended the
paranoid fringe and become widely accepted as credible.
*East-West Review*
A study that both answers a number of questions about the
post-Soviet Russian public sphere and signals other possible ways
to interrogate its workings. As such, it should be read by all
specialists in contemporary Russian culture.... Borenstein's text
is so well written and entertaining that it will easily hold the
attention of undergraduate students of post-Soviet Russian culture,
history, and politics.
*Russian Review*
Written with irony and wit, Eliot Borenstein's Plots Against Russia
analyzes Russian national myths and disturbingly popular beliefs in
the internet age. Borenstein's tour of the darker side of Russian
internet, popular fiction, television, and movies, where conspiracy
theories flourish with baroque profusion, opens a window onto the
engaging and terrifying landscape of contemporary Russian
fantasy.
*Citation from the 2020 Wayne S. Vucinich Book Prize Committee*
Brilliantly written and captivating, sometimes very funny as well
as academically well-grounded, Borenstein's monograph provides an
in-depth analysis of Russian contemporary conspiratorial culture.
It will undoubtedly be useful for scholars dealing with post-Soviet
Russia within disciplines such as cultural, literary and media
studies, and should not be overlooked by historians, political
scientists and sociologists, as the phenomena it describes are
crucial for better understanding the political landscape of
present-day Russia.
*Europe-Asia Studies*
Eliot Borenstein has contributed a rich and insightful study of
conspiratorial narra-tives in Russian films, media, and fiction to
the growing scholarly field of post-Soviet conspiracy
theory[...]describing how these narratives function to construct
conceptions of Russia's state-hood, identity, and
destiny.Borenstein also provides a sophisticated, critical, and
productive discussion and further development of theo-ries on
conspiratorial thinking that could be applied to conspiracy
narratives outside of Russia. It makes for an insightful and often
entertaining read.
*Laboratorium*
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