COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories

John Bodner is an associate professor of folklore in the social/cultural studies program at the Grenfell Campus of Memorial University of Newfoundland. He has conducted fieldwork among tree planters, street kids and illegal marijuana growers to document the relationship between marginalized communities, work, identity, crime, and tradition. Wendy Welch is the author or editor of six books and the executive director of the Graduate Medical Education Consortium of Southwest Virginia where she advocates for social justice and policy planning in equal measure. She lives in Wytheville, Virginia. Ian Brodie is the associate professor of folklore at Cape Breton University in Nova Scotia, Canada. President-Elect of the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research, he has served as President of the Folklore Studies Association of Canada. Anna Muldoon, a former Science Policy Advisor for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, focuses on social responses to infectious disease, ranging from conspiracy narratives to religious history to fashion and fiction. She has published on a number of such issues. Donald Leech, an associate professor of history at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise, has published articles on the changes in the English urban society and economy in the 15th and 16th centuries as the Middle Ages merged into the modern era. He also wrote about the early process of enclosing and privatizing common lands as part of the same changes. Ashley Marshall serves as chief executive officer of a nonprofit organization. Through her work tackling systemic racism, oppression, and justice she has fought the impacts of conspiracy thinking, rumor, and legend that continue to perpetuate inequalities.

“An exceptionally timely book, the authors combine intellectual forces to explore the complexities of the conspiracy theories that gained enormous traction during the COVID-19 pandemic. The team marshals the perspectives of these diverse fields to provide historical and folkloristic anchoring for the narratives, memes, and other expressive forms that ‘went viral’ across various platforms during the first months of the pandemic. The folkloristic perspective of Bodner and Brodie ensures that the stories themselves are not glossed over, but rather form the backbone of the ensuing investigations of this dynamic narrative ecosystem. ... The various examples of conspiracy theories...including the ‘virus-as-hoax,’ are among the most engaging of the entire volume. ... The book is written in a remarkably accessible language and targeted primarily at university-level students. It will also be of interest to researchers and journalists looking for a substantive and well-researched introduction to COVID-19 conspiracy theories. The authors should be commended for documenting and analyzing an ongoing crisis ... Corralling scholars from so many disciplines is difficult under the best of circumstances, but here, the efforts are clearly worth the end product, as the authors have provided an important view of the storytelling ecosystem of the early pandemic period, while modeling the best of interdisciplinary research.”—Journal of American Folklore

• Table of ContentsForeword by Anna MerlanIntroductionOne. Conspiracy Theory 101: A PrimerTwo. The “Wuhan Virus”: A Cautionary Tale of Origin Conspiracy TheoriesThree. Recycling White Power Rumors After the Black DeathFour. “But My Cousin Said”: Covid-19 and Black CommunitiesFive. Harmful Additives: Pre–and Pandemic ­Anti-Vaccination ThinkingSix. Apocalypse Now, or Later? End Times and the New World OrderSeven. QAnon, Pizzagate and the PandemicEight. Waves of the Future or Waves of Oppression? 5G FearsNine. Drawing Lines in Shifting Sand: The ­Covid-19 Cartoons of Ben GarrisonTen. When All Is Said—or Done: Examining Ourselves, Talking to OthersAcknowledgmentsAuthor BiographiesChapter NotesReferences CitedIndex