Prof. Dr. Michael Butter

• L: Introduction to Cultural Studies
• L: Issues in American Literary and Cultural History II: From the Revolution to the Civil War
• S: Pocahontas
• KO: Dealing with Conspiracy Theories in the Classroom

• L: Introduction to Cultural Studies
• L: Issues in American Literary & Cultural History I: From Colonialism to the Revolution
• S: Introduction to Cultural Studies (nur IAS)
• S: Literature of the Early Republic
• S: Sex, Sandals, and Society: Rome in Hollywood
• KO: MA Colloquium

The ERC-funded project “Populism and Conspiracy Theory (PACT)” investigates the significance of conspiracy theories for populist movements in four European countries and two in the Americas. The project is scheduled to run until September 2025. The PI, Michael Butter, and his team (one postdoc and four PhD students) will employ a combination of discourse analysis and ethnographic methods to study the connections between populism and conspiracy theories in online and offline discourses in Austria, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Brazil and the United States. Michael Butter will focus on right- and left-wing populism during the 2020 presidential election campaigns.

The CHANSE-funded project "Researching Europe, Digitilisation and Conspiracy Theory (REDACT)" analyzes how digitalization shapes the form, content, and consequences of conspiracy theories, including online sociality and offline actions and effects. Rather than see digitalisation as a process that has universal outcomes, or conspiracy theories as the same over space and time, REDACT considers online conspiracy theories and counter-publics in different European regions (Western Europe, Central Europe, the Baltics, and the Balkans) in order to make robust and nuanced recommendations about conspiracy theories—a particularly durable form of mis- and disinformation—for policy makers, media regulators, fact-checking and extremism-monitoring organisations, as well as the internet companies themselves.

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.

• Die Alarmierten: Was Verschwörungstheorien anrichten. Berlin: Suhrkamp. September 2025.
• “Rev. of Michael Hagemeister, The Perennial Conspiracy Theory: Reflections on the History of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. London: Routledge, 2022.” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 72.3: (2024): 504-06.

• (ed. with Katerina Hatzikidi, Constanze Jeitler, Giacomo Loperfido, and Lili Turza) Populism and Conspiracy Theory: Case Studies and Theoretical Perspectives. London/New York: Routledge, 2025. View online
• “Introduction.” Populism and Conspiracy Theory: Case Studies and Theoretical Perspectives. Ed. Michael Butter et al. London/New York: Routledge, 2025. 1-11.
• (ed.) Conspiracy Theories. Focus of American Book Review 45.1 (2024). https://americanbookreview.org/focus-conspiracy-spring-2024/
• “Introduction.” American Book Review 45.1 (2024): 1-4. https://americanbookreview.org/focus-conspiracy-spring-2024/
• “Rev. of Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2019.” American Book Review 45.1 (2024): 22-26.

• “Die RKI-Files (2/2): Die Einordnung”: Hat die Politik überreagiert und sich über die Wissenschaft hinweggesetzt? Kritiker der Coronamaßnahmen sahen sich mit Veröffentlichung der Protokolle des Robert Koch-Instituts bestätigt. Doch es ist nicht so klar, ob die Papiere zum Skandal taugen. Interview im Deutschlandfunk, 18.12.2024.
• "Republic of Crazy: Lügen und Verschwörungstheorien sind der «grosse unsichtbare Motor» der USA – und das nicht erst seit Donald Trump". Zitiert in einem Beitrag der NZZ, 20.04.2024.
• "Verschwörungstheorien selbst sind meist nicht das Problem". Interview im Schwäbischen Tagblatt, 05.03.2024.
• "Wir wussten nicht, was da auf uns zukommt“: Vortrag vom Verschwörungstheoretiker Veikko Stölzer fällt aus". Zitiert in einem Beitrag der Kreiszeitung, 15.02.2024.
• "USA - Wahlkampf der Religionen", Radiointerview mit dem ORF, 07.02.2024.