Jonathan Ablard awarded a Dana Professorship
In 2025, Jonathan Ablard was awarded a five-year Dana Professorship, during which he will focus on the completion of his next book project, Lies and Untruths: Conspiracy Theories in Latin America from Colony to COVID and also the development of public facing programming and on-campus teaching that addresses the current ‘infodemic.’
Lies and Untruths traces the arc of conspiracy theories, rumors, and disinformation from the early Iberian conquests and the imposition of slave regimes to the rise of far-right politicians and COVID-deniers who trafficked in disinformation. The power of these recent false narratives owes their success as much to social media algorithms as to traditions of conspiratorial narratives that can be traced back to the early colonial periods.