D’une population fictionnelle contemporaine : (re)configurations des comploteurs à grande échelle depuis le tournant du xixe siècle

In Western Europe, fictional populations of conspirators flourished alongside the novel and the nation-state, creating an imagination of modernity that has continued to develop and reconfigure itself. The turn of the 19th century marked the beginning of the multiplication of transterritorial figures and figurations of a grand conspiracy, which would resurface through various periods of crisis, until today reaching unprecedented proportions. Taking note of the representations of the world and of worldness that this double dynamic sets in motion, this article considers, from the Atlantic area —a multi-continental area where conspiracy narratives in Western European languages have gradually diversified— the constitutive features and main evolutions of fictitious plotters haunting our fantasies and fictions for over two centuries. The comparative panorama that emerges sheds light on the centuries-old perpetuation of a fictional population that goes hand in hand with that of a “great narrative” of conspiracy, the end of which postmodernity is far from having signed.