Steven Fielding: "‘My dear chap, politics is a conspiracy’: Margaret Thatcher and the rise of the conspiracy drama in 1980s Britain"

Intervenant: Steven Fielding (University of Nottingham)

Discussante: Pauline Blistène (ERC Demoseries, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)

From being a political culture widely seen as defined by deference to authority, during the fractious 1980s British screens saw an increase in dramas which posited the existence of conspiracies intent on undermining representative democracy, and which were engineered by the intelligence services, Washington as well as elements within the Conservative party. These were often popular, and many believed they depicted actual threats, based as they were on real events, mixing fact and fiction as they did. As in the similar process evident in the United State a decade before these were leftist conspiracies which hoped to alert audiences to threats from within. Quite what was their political impact is however unclear – and they likely merely contributed to a general mistrust of the state, whoever was in charge.

N.B. Le séminaire se déroulera en format hybride, avec retransmission sur Zoom via ce lien: https://zoom.univ-paris1.fr/j/92638165399?pwd=QVRVSnVnZUNVdnBxQXhtVlVWT0xUUT09

Renseignements : contact@demoseries.eu