Questions like “What does this mean?” are central to our encounters with art. “How are these signs connected?” or “how do all symbols fit into an unstated scheme?” are the foundational concerns of aesthetics. Yet, when the same concerns crop up regularly in almost any other part of life, we give a clinical, pathological name: paranoia.

These questions were the makings of ⁠Paranoia⁠, a symposium held at Verdurin in February 2025.

This episode is a recording of a talk by Justin Smith-Ruiu. Justin reflects on how conspiracy-quashing slogans like ‘trust the science’ are, in fact, only functional under very specific conditions. The procedures invoked by fact-checkers and disinformation specialists may already be in the first phase of their obsolescence.

Justin also touches on his recent dabblings in metafiction – in particular their experimentation with pseudonyms and heteronyms via his publication The Hinternet. This project proposes a way for writers to induce in readers a suspicion that the most basic anchors of a text, like the name of its author, might just be a lie.

Justin is a professor of the history and philosophy of science at the Université Paris Cité. He is the author of The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is and Irrationality: A History of the Dark Side of Reason.

He has authored monographs on Leibniz and Early Modern Philosophy. He is also a contributor to The New York Times, Harper’s, n+1, and The Point.

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⁠The Paranoia programme in full⁠.

⁠More events at Verdurin⁠.

Justin's Irrationality.

Questions like “What does this mean?” are central to our encounters with art. “How are these signs connected?” or “how do all symbols fit into an unstated scheme?” are the foundational concerns of aesthetics. Yet, when the same concerns crop up regularly in almost any other part of life, we give a clinical, pathological name: paranoia.

These questions were the makings of ⁠Paranoia⁠, a symposium held at Verdurin in February 2025.

This episode is a recoding of A Long Thread, a talk by the writer Sam Jennigs.

Sam speaks about what is arguably the first conspiracy theory in Western intellectual history: Gnosticism. In particular, he considers how the doctrine of Gnosis arises through the growing belief that “interpretation” of scripture was a vital part of faith.

This focus on interpretation breeds an ethos of seeking subtextual or hidden meaning. From Renaissance occultists to moderns like Pynchon, and Phillip K. Dick, writers have turned to Gnosticism as a secret undercurrent in the history of Western literature.

The Paranoia programme in full⁠.

⁠More events at Verdurin⁠.

Sam's Vita Contemplativa.

Questions like “What does this mean?” are central to our encounters with art. “How are these signs connected?” or “how do all symbols fit into an unstated scheme?” are the foundational concerns of aesthetics. Yet, when the same concerns crop up regularly in almost any other part of life, we give a clinical, pathological name: paranoia.

These questions were the makings of Paranoia, a symposium held at Verdurin in February 2025.

This episode is a recording of Reading Between the Lines by Thomas Peermohamed Lambert.

Since Paul Ricoeur, literary studies have been dominated by a ‘hermeneutics of suspicion.’ In his presentation, Thomas discusses the strange affinity between literary modernism and conspiracy theory.

He makes example of the paranoia evident in the work of writers like Kafka and Borges.

Thomas also considers the death the ‘inductive’ novel, and the question of whether readers have become rather too trusting of what they read.

Thomas is a writer and scholar. He co-organised the Paranoia event.

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The Paranoia programme in full.

More events at Verdurin.

Thomas' novel Shibboleth.