People

The project leader is Patrik Fridlund, PhD, Associate Professor of Philosophy of Religion at the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies, Lund University. Informed by readings of contemporary philosophers such as Jacques Derrida, Luce Irigaray, Emmanuel Levinas and Paul Ricoeur, Fridlund's research focuses on populism, post-truth and conspiracy theories in the context of political theology. In the project Beyond Truth and Lies, Fridlund is mainly interested in how conspiracy theories can challenge established notions of rationality and truth, while maintaining a critical posture toward them. Are there other ways to critique post-truthers and conspiracy theorists than by simply excluding them from public discourse? If truth is not a simple measuring device, what other criteria might be useful?

Rickard Andersson, PhD, is a research fellow in political science at Lund University. In his research, he has specialized in political theory and the history of Western political thought with emphasis on the relationship between humanity and nature. He has also studied the conceptual interface between politics and knowledge. In the project Beyond Truth and Lies, Andersson is using poststructuralist political theory to study how authority is configured in conspiracist reasoning, and the connection between conspiracy theories and democracy. 

Aaron James Goldman, PhD, is a research fellow in philosophy of religion at Lund University. His central expertise is early- to late-Modern Western philosophy and religious thought, especially in the work of Immanuel Kant and Søren Kierkegaard, and he also conducts research on theory and method in religious studies. Goldman’s contribution to Beyond Truth and Lies is to study conspiracisms from a perspective empowered by classical theories of religion.

Jens Bartelson, Professor of Political Science (Lund University, Sweden)

Annalisa Caputo, Professor of Philosophical Hermeneutics (University of Bari, Italy)

Alexandre Duchêne, Professor of Sociology of Language (University of Fribourg, Switzerland)

Kate Kirkpatrick, Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy and Christian Ethics (University of Oxford, UK)