For more of my critiques of conspiracy theory in Medium: 2021: “Anti-Vaxxers, Conspiracy Theorists, and Jean Baudrillard’s “Perfect Crime” 2020: “UFO-JFK-X-NEO-Q: The Alpha-Omega of Conspiracy Theory” 2020: “Welcome to the Desert of the Red Pill” 2017: “The Kennedy Assassination and Zapruder Film: Conspiracy Theories and Alt-Fact Worldviews” 2017: “Ancient Aliens…

AUTHORS Julia M. Hildebrand (Drexel University) and Barry Vacker (Temple University) Since publication here, this concept essay won a prestigous international award—The 2019 John Culkin Award for Outstanding Praxis in the Field of Media Ecology, awarded annually by the Media Ecology Association. The essay inspired the Media(S)cene art exhibit at the…

Stars, Dirt, and the Cosmic Sublime In an early scene in Interstellar, Cooper laments: “We used to look up in the sky and wonder at our place in the stars. Now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt.” This lament follows a long tradition of humans gazing up at the vast…

Fifty years after its debut, 2001 is more relevant than ever. Released at the height of the space age in 1968, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey was one of the cinematic and cultural blockbusters of the 1960s and early 1970s. Fifty years later, 2001 stands as the greatest and…

… to the Fusion of Reagan, Republicans, and Religion — I know my personal experience about this topic is not unique. It can’t be. There were a few others concerned about the long-term fate of secular society in wake of the 1980s fusion of Reagan, Republicans, and evangelical religion — the theocratic philosophy now in power on the U.S. Supreme…

That’s Just the Way MAGA and the GOP Want It — Introduction “Thoughts and Prayers.” Few things make me more disgusted than seeing or hearing these words uttered after a mass shooting — yet another random, senseless slaughter of innocent people in America. Kids in Texas, Black people in Buffalo, gay men in Florida, country-music fans in Las Vegas, the list is…

Samuel Alito and the High Priests Demolish the Wall Between Church and State — Overturning Roe v. Wade is a moral and intellectual disgrace, a regressive attack on the universal human rights of all women in the USA. And those rights start at the very top. In the First Amendment. Atop the Bill of Rights. Of course, Roe v. Wade is not a First…

Home to the Wonders and Horrors of 21st Century America — Journeys Into the Future and the Past Behold TexasWorld! A giant land of wonders and horrors awaits in the Lone Star State — rocket launches, border walls, cattle drives, massive telescopes, high fashion, electric cars, skyscraper metropolises, hipster gatherings, conspiracy cults, world-class art, fascist leaders, fossil fuel utopias, Rome-like football stadia, pre-scientific plagues of mass death, and…

We live in a world where the highest function of the sign is to make reality disappear — For more of my critiques of conspiracy theory in Medium: 2020: “UFO-JFK-X-NEO-Q: The Alpha-Omega of Conspiracy Theory” 2020: “Welcome to the Desert of the Red Pill” 2017: “Apollo Moon Landings: Pseudoscience and Six Reasons Why There Was No NASA Hoax” 2017: “The Kennedy Assassination and Zapruder Film: Conspiracy Theories and…