Between 2016-2020, The COST Action “Comparative Analysis of Conspiracy Theories” synthesized and moved forward the European research on conspiracy theories. The network comprised more than 160 scholars from 40 countries and over a dozen disciplines. In March 2020, the Routledge Handbook for Conspiracy Theories was published which provides the most comprehensive analysis of the phenomenon to date. Additionally, recommendations for dealing with conspiracy theories, educational material and an extended bibliography of academic research on conspiracy theories have been made available for the project website.
In 2016 and 2017 Michael Butter worked on a general introduction to conspiracy theories which was published to great acclaim in 2018. The updated and revised English translation was published by Polity Press in fall 2020.
Between 2012 and 2016, Michael Butter was a member of the Collaborative Research Center “Heroes – Heroizations – Heroisms” at the University of Freiburg and directed a project on “New Washingtons? The Heroization of American Presidents from the Revolution to Reconstruction.” He wrote a short monograph about this topic as well as articles on the heroization of William Henry Harrison and Donald Trump. Another important outcome of the project is a database of nearly 2,000 poems written on American presidents between 1789 and 1865.
Between 2009 and 2012, Michael Butter worked on the history of conspiracy theories in American culture from the Puritans to the present. The resulting monograph, which focuses on the 19th century, was published in 2014.
Between 2005 and 2008, Michael Butter was a member of the network “The Futures of (European) American Studies,” which discussed possible venues for the discipline in the 21st century. Funded by the German Research Council, the project organized a number of conferences and edited a collection of essays.
Between 2004 and 2007, Michael Butter pursued a PhD project that investigated how American literature employs the figure of Adolf Hitler to negotiate genuinely American concerns. The project resulted in a monograph published in 2009 and a number of articles on literary and visual representations of Hitler, Nazism and the Holocaust and the genre of alternate history in which they frequently occur.
